Salinas is a lake event in the

Salar de Uyuni Salar de Uyuni (or "Salar de Tunupa") is the world's largest salt flat, or playa, at in area. It is in the Daniel Campos Province in Potosí in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes at an elevation of above sea level. The Salar wa ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

. The existence of this lake event is documented by

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitation (chemistry), precipitate out of water in ambient temperature, unheated rivers or lakes. hot spring, Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less ...

mounds which are up to high. It belongs to a series of ancient lakes which covered the southern

Altiplano The Altiplano (Spanish language, Spanish for "high plain"), Collao (Quechuan languages, Quechua and Aymara language, Aymara: Qullaw, meaning "place of the Qulla people, Qulla") or Andean Plateau, in west-central South America, is the most extens ...

in Bolivia, reaching a maximum surface area of . This series includes several phases, two major phases named

Lake Tauca Lake Tauca is a former lake in the Altiplano of Bolivia. It is also known as Lake Pocoyu for its constituent lakes: Lake Poopó, Salar de Coipasa and Salar de Uyuni. The lake covered large parts of the southern Altiplano between the Eastern Co ...

and

Ouki Ouki was an ancient lake in the Bolivian Altiplano. Its existence was postulated in 2006 by a group of scientists who had subdivided the Lake Minchin lake cycle into several lake phases. The Lake Minchin cycle had been previously identified in 1904 ...

as well as a few minor ones. These lake phases appear to occur in response to increased moisture supply from the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

. The formation of the Salinas lake was probably accompanied by a 50-100% increase of precipitation. The Salinas event lasted between approximately 95,000 and 80,000 years ago. It was preceded by another lake event,

. Alternatively, it may be part of the Ouki event, more specifically of its waning stage. The Ouki and Salinas lake cycles coincided with cooling events in the

North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...

, glacier expansions in the Puna and possibly the

Cordillera Blanca The Cordillera Blanca (Spanish for "white range") is a mountain range in Peru that is part of the larger Andes range and extends for between 8°08' and 9°58'S and 77°00' and 77°52'W, in a northwesterly direction. It includes several peaks ove ...

, and with changes to

alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to Semi-arid climate, semiar ...

s at Llano de Chajnantor. During the Salinas lake cycle, lake levels did not rise above altitude, but overall lake levels were variable. Overall the lake covered a surface area of if the Poopo basin is included, or if not. The hydrology of the Salinas event includes water flow from the

Lake Poopo A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a depression (geology), basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land an ...

into the

Salar de Coipasa __NOTOC__ Lago Coipasa is a lake in Sabaya Province, Oruro Department, Bolivia. At an elevation of 3657 m, its surface area is 806 km². It is located on the western part of Altiplano, 20 km north of Salar de Uyuni and south of the mai ...

/Salar de Uyuni basin, as in the previous Ouki phase. This input probably did not exceed 45% of the total water supply of the Salinas lake.

References

Sources

* * * {{coord missing, Bolivia Former lakes of South America Geology of Bolivia Pleistocene Lakes of Bolivia