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 over 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 Sala ...

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

. The existence of this lake event is documented by

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitate out of water in unheated rivers or lakes. Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less porous) carbonate deposits, which are known as traverti ...

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

Altiplano The Altiplano (Spanish for "high plain"), Collao ( Quechua and Aymara: Qullaw, meaning "place of the Qulla") or Andean Plateau, in west-central South America, is the most extensive high plateau on Earth outside Tibet. The plateau is located a ...

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 Cord ...

and

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

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: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

. 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 oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...

, glacier expansions in the Puna 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 semiarid climates, but a ...

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 into the

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

/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