Salado River is a
river of Chile located in
El Loa Province
El Loa Province () is one of three provinces of the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta (II). It is named after the longest of rivers in Chile, the Loa River. The provincial capital is Calama.
Geography and demography
According to the 2012 ...
,
Antofagasta Region
The Antofagasta Region (, ) is one of Chile's Administrative divisions of Chile, sixteen first-order administrative divisions. Being the second-largest region of Chile in area, it comprises three provinces, Antofagasta Province, Antofagasta, El ...
which is in the northern part of the country. It is formed at the confluence of over 30
spring branches emerging from
El Tatio
El Tatio is a geothermal field with many geysers located in the Andes Mountains of northern Chile at above mean sea level. It is the third-largest geyser field in the world and the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. Various meanings have bee ...
area. Flowing briefly south, it turns west and passes through a canyon that it has carved in volcanic rocks.
In its middle course, the river receives the ''Toconce River'' (originated at the foot of
Linzor volcano) from the north and the ''Caspana River'' from the south. In this area, a part of the flow of its tributaries is diverted for providing water for domestic consumption in
Antofagasta
Antofagasta () is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 402,669.
Once claimed by Bolivia follo ...
and
Tocopilla
Tocopilla is a city and commune in the Antofagasta Region, in the north of Chile. It is the capital of the province that bears the same name.
Every year Tocopilla celebrates its anniversary on 29 September with a big show the day before, which ...
, amongst other localities.
After joining with the two aforementioned streams, the Salado River enters a floodplain, which is used for pasturage by the inhabitants of the nearby localities, including
Toconce,
Caspana and
Aiquina. Then, the Salado again flows through a narrow canyon, where the so-called ''Devil's Bridge'' is found, which is a 5-metre wide gash that the river has cut through
rhyolite
Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture (geology), texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained matri ...
terrain.
Finally, the Salado empties into the
Loa River
The Loa River (Spanish: Río Loa) is a U-shaped river in Chile's northern Antofagasta Region. At long, it is the country's longest river and the main watercourse in the Atacama Desert.
Course
The Loa's sources are located on Andean mountain sl ...
, the main watercourse of the Chilean
Norte Grande
The Norte Grande (''Big North'', ''Far North'', ''Great North'') is one of the five natural regions into which CORFO divided continental Chile in 1950. It borders Peru to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Altiplano, Bolivia and A ...
, about 3 km south of
Chiuchiu.
References
* This article draws heavily on the
corresponding article in the
Spanish-language Wikipedia, accessed 16 August 2007.
*
Rivers of Antofagasta Region
Rivers of Chile
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