Mine de Lithium - Chili - Lithium Mine - Chile

Mine de Lithium - Chili - Lithium Mine - Chile : Le salar d'Atacama au Chili est un des plus grands gisements de lithium du monde. L'eau salee est pompee puis emmenee vers des bassins d'evaporation pour recuperer les depots de lithium. Les differences de couleurs sont dues aux differentes concentrations de sel dans l'eau. En bleu clair, les plus fortes concentrations de lithium. Image prise depuis la station spatiale internationale (ISS) en mars 2016. With 29 percent of the world's reserves, Chile's Salar de Atacama is the world's largest source of lithium. Companies pump brine to the surface and shunt it through a network of canals to shallow evaporation ponds lined with plastic. Then the region's relentlessly dry, sunny, and windy weather evaporates the brine and leaves behind deposits of lithium and other salts. Color variations in the ponds are due to varying concentrations of salt in the water, lighter blue ponds have higher concentrations of lithium. The network of canals and hundreds of pumps around the evaporation ponds form the grid patterns around the clusters of ponds. This astronaut photograph was acquired in march 2016 from the International Space Station (ISS) ©Nasa/Novapix/Leemage