Landscape and climate evolution in arid to hyperarid climates with special focus on the Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert of northern Chile and Peru is one of the driest places on Earth, with a modern hyperarid core, receiving less than 2 mm/yr of precipitation. The persistent arid climate in the Atacama Desert preserves evidences of earlier ‘wetter’ periods in the geological record. These evidences indicate that even during prolonged aridity, active geomorphological and biological processes existed. Arid conditions are controlled by several interconnected processes, such as atmospheric circulation, oceanic currents, and tectonic activity. Although the main factors forcing aridity have been identified, their timing and succession is still being debated. Most paleoclimate studies in the Atacama Desert have been carried out on the fringes of the extreme hyperarid zone (here, hyperarid regions are considered to be those displaying