Laguna Verde (Bolivia)
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Laguna Verde (Spanish for "green lake")<ref name="LinebackGritzner2009">Template:Cite book</ref> is a salt lake in an endorheic basin, in the southwestern Altiplano in Bolivia. It is located in the Sur Lípez Province of the Potosí Department. It is close to the Chilean border, at the foot of the volcano Licancabur.
Geography
The Laguna Verde is a lake at Template:Convert elevation.<ref name="Risacher1991">Template:Cite journal</ref> It covers an area of Template:Convert and has a depth of Template:Convert,<ref name="Cabrol2009" /> and a narrow causeway divides it into two parts. It is at the southwestern extremity of the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve and Bolivia itself. It has mineral suspensions of arsenic and other minerals which renders colour to the lake waters. Its color varies from turquoise to dark emerald depending on the disturbance caused to sediments in the lake by winds.
In the backdrop of the lake there is the inactive volcano Licancabur of Template:Convert in elevation, which is a nearly perfect cone.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The shorelines west and east of the lake have different characteristics, with the western and southern shores eroded into volcanoes.<ref name="Cabrol2018" /> Geothermal heat warms waters that then emerge into Laguna Blanca through springs,<ref name="Cabrol2003" /> the lakes are otherwise fed by snowfall.<ref name="Cabrol2018" /> The catchment of the lake has an area of about Template:Convert.<ref name="Risacher1991" />
In the past, the lake was at least Template:Convert higher<ref name="Cabrol2018" /> and larger than today, during the last glacial maximum it merged with neighbouring Laguna Blanca. Former highstands have left 30 major and 12 minor shorelines.<ref name="Cabrol2003">Template:Cite book</ref> The lake extended far east of its present-day shore.<ref name="Cabrol2018" /> A maximum water level was reached 13,240 years before present. The two lakes today are only connected by a single channel and their properties are quite different.<ref name="Cabrol2009" /> The lake is seldom ice-covered, water temperatures range between Template:Convert. Air temperatures range between Template:Convert, and UV radiation is 40% higher than at sea level.<ref name="Cabrol2009">Template:Cite journal Template:Erratum</ref> Environmental conditions have been compared to those on the planet Mars, and Laguna Verde has been cited as an example of how a lake on Mars would have evolved.<ref name="Cabrol2018">Template:Citation</ref>
The lake is one of Bolivia's most important tourism targets.<ref name="Perreault2005">Template:Cite journal</ref> Stromatolites of various shapes and sizes occur at Laguna Verde, they cover an area of over Template:Convert but are inactive today. Presumably, they grew around 20,000-10,000 years ago.<ref name="Cabrol2003" /> Presently, smaller structures and microbial mats formed by cyanobacteria still occur at Laguna Verde.<ref name="Cabrol2018" /> Mining tailings are found at its shores.<ref name="Cabrol2009" /> The bacterial species Chromohalobacter sarecensis was discovered at Laguna Verde.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Despite their connection, Laguna Verde and Laguna Blanca have distinctly different biological and chemical traits.<ref name="Cabrol2018" />
See also
- Laguna Blanca (Bolivia) — a salt lake also in the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve
- Altiplano region