Uyuni Salt Desert, Bolivia

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Occupying over 10,000 square kilometers, the vast Salar de Uyuni sits at the southern tip of the Altiplano, in the central Andes. About 40,000 years ago, this area was part of a gigantic prehistoric lake that dried up,​​ leaving behind the salar--salt desert.

The geometric shapes in the upper left are large evaporation ponds from the national lithium mine, where lithium bicarbonate is isolated from the brine.

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The surrounding terrain is rugged compared to the vast salt flats. In the lower right corner we can see the 20 km wide alluvial fan of the Rio Grande de Lípez delta.

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In general, the Salar de Uyuni is very flat, with an altitude variation of less than 1 m. This makes the area ideal for calibrating satellite radar altimeters – a type of radar instrument that measures surface topography.

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Image taken in

May 17, 2017

Copernicus Sentinel 2-B