Geochemical proxies for water-soil interactions in the hyperarid Atacama Desert, Chile

The Atacama Desert is the oldest and driest non-polar desert on Earth. Millions of years of hyperaridity enabled salt accumulations through atmospheric deposition. These salts can serve as proxies to decipher the interaction between water and soil as well as to understand the habitability with changing environmental settings. Therefore, we investigated four soil profiles regarding their mineralogy, salt abundance, and sulfate stable isotopic composition. The profiles were located along an elevation transect in the hyperarid region southeast of Antofagasta, Chile. The two lower sites situated on the distal parts of inactive alluvial fan deposits were subject to occasional fog occurrences. The upper steeper-sloped sites experienced no fog but are subject to minimal erosion. In all soil profiles, sulfates are the dominant salts showing a downward transition from gypsum to anhydrite that is accompanied by an increase of highly soluble salts and a decrease of sulfate delta S-34 and delta O-18 values. These trends are consistent with downward directed water infiltration during rare rain events causing salt dissolution followed by precipitation within the deeper soil column. This conclusion is also supported by our Rayleigh fractionation model. We attribute the presence of anhydrite at > 40 cm depth to the cooccurrence of nitrate and chloride salts, which decreases water activity during sulfate precipitation and therefore drives anhydrite formation. Along the elevation transect, the total salt inventories of each profile show a trend for nitrates and chlorides concentration decreasing with elevation. This observation together with the sulfate stable isotopes indicates a fog-independent source and suggests remobilization of soluble salts through enhanced washout from hillslopes to alluvial fans. These findings are essential for assessing the long-term regional habitability of hyperarid environments and have also relevance for Mars.

Automated summary

The study in the Atacama Desert in Chile investigated mineralogy, salt abundance, and sulfate stable isotopic composition in four soil profiles. It was found that sulfates are the dominant salts with a transition from gypsum to anhydrite observed in all profiles. This transition is accompanied by an increase of highly soluble salts and a decrease of sulfate delta S-34 and delta O-18 values.