The Agua Negra Pass (Spanish: Paso de Agua Negra) is a pass over the Andes mountains which connects

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. The highest point of this pass is at AMSL.

Agua Negra Tunnel

To improve trade between Chile and Argentina, a 14 km, three-bore vehicular tunnel (two for traffic and one for ventilation) below the pass is planned, which will allow year-round traffic. (The pass is closed for much of the winter.) In March 2015, Argentina officially approved the project. It is awaiting ratification from Chile. In 2018, the bidding contest for the tunnel project between construction companies took place. The whole project was budgeted at 1.5 billion dollars. Also planned for the deepest part of the tunnel is the

Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site (ANDES) The Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site (ANDES) is a project for the construction and operation of an underground laboratory in the Agua Negra Tunnel, between Argentina and Chile. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico are involved in this project and are al ...

(ANDES): an underground laboratory. Because all currently operating deep underground laboratories are located in the Northern Hemisphere, a Southern Hemisphere site would have some unique benefits: * Combined with existing

neutrino detector A neutrino detector is a physics apparatus which is designed to study neutrinos. Because neutrinos only weakly interact with other particles of matter, neutrino detectors must be very large to detect a significant number of neutrinos. Neutrino d ...

s, a longer baseline would allow more accurate localization of sources in

neutrino astronomy Neutrino astronomy is the branch of astronomy that observes astronomical objects with neutrino detectors in special observatories. Neutrinos are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, nuclear reactions such as those that take ...

, and * When searching for

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not a ...

, there is expected to be a seasonal variation due to the Earth's motion around the Sun. But such a signal could also be an error, caused by some subtle seasonal effect. Confirmation from a location with opposite seasons would rule out such an error. ANDES is not expected to be ready before 2027.

Gallery

File:Agua negra argentina.JPG, Paso de Agua Negra, Argentine side File:Agua negra chile.JPG, Paso de Agua Negra, Chilean side File:Penitentes Agua Negra.JPG, Penitentes near the summit

References

Argentina–Chile border crossings Mountain passes of Chile Mountain passes of Argentina Mountain passes of the Andes Landforms of Atacama Region Landforms of Catamarca Province {{Atacama-geo-stub

Agua Negra Tunnel

Gallery

See also

References