After 7 days of intense fieldwork we finished the geophysical survey in the claypan PAG south of the Río Loa. Together with colleagues from the Institute of Geophysics and Meteorology of the UoC (Pritam Yogeshwar, Barbara Blanco, Wiebke Mörbe) and the TUBAF Freiberg (Stefan Buske, Peggy Gödickmeier, Christoph Büttner, Lukas Ninnemann), Julia Diederich and Volker Wennrich from project A02 conducted a detailed seismic and TEM (Transient electromagnetics) investigation of the claypan already cored in fall 2017 to reconstruct the thickness and 3D sediment geometry of the sediment infill. First primary TEM results indicate two clearly distinguishable sediment layers above the bedrock at a depth of 40 – 90  m, what is much deeper than expected before.

During the seismic survey the highly sensitive geophones recorded several smaller earthquakes, and a bigger with a magnitude of 6.2 even shaked our camp.

We’re now refilling food and water to continue to the next claypan in Huara (ca. 40 km from Iquique).

In April 2018, the members of the subproject C2 successfully completed the second field trip to the westernmost part of the Atacama Desert. While fieldwork in 2017 dealt with coastal alluvial fans between Iquique and Mejillones, in total 4 alluvial fans distributed between Mejillones and Taltal were studied intensely in 2018.

The primary aim was to get insights into the timing and characteristics of transport and deposition along the western flank of the north-south running Coastal Cordillera. In order to establish a detailed geochronological framework of the alluvial fan systems, sampling was carried out for luminescence, electron spin resonance, cosmogenic nuclide and U/Th dating. In addition, at some alluvial fan surfaces, tephra samples could be collected to provide a potential independent age control. Furthermore, geomorphological mapping, and ground-based as well as aerial surveys were carried to understand the depositional history of the alluvial fans.

General Assembly in Vienna

The EGU General Assembly took place from the 09-13.04.2018 in Vienna with up to 15,075 scientists from 106 countries (EGU, 2018). The CRC 1211 was represented by in total five posters, one PICO talk and one oral presentation. The wide-range of different topics and perspectives of different research questions and projects enabled a productive exchange of knowledge and gave rise to further interdisciplinary cooperations.

Poster

• Irrigation experiments at the Salar Grande (N-Chile) – improving our understanding of hillslope processes in the Atacama Desert
  Lennart Meine (1), Simon Matthias May (1), Dirk Hoffmeister (1), Florian Steininger (1), and Olaf Bubenzer (2) (1) Institute of Geography, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, (2) Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
• Cutoff Lows over the Southeast Pacific off the Coast of the Atacama Desert under Present Day Conditions and in the Last Glacial Maximum
  Mark Reyers and Yaping Shao University of Cologne, Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, Cologne, Germany (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
• Earth – Evolution at the dry limit
  Tibor J. Dunai and the SFB 1211 project leaders Institute for Geology and Mineralogy, Univ. Cologne, Cologne, Germany (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
• Investigating hillslope processes in the hyper-arid zone of the Atacama Desert – different forms, preliminary results, and future perspectives
  Simon Matthias May (1), Dirk Hoffmeister (1), Lennart Meine (1), and Olaf Bubenzer (2) (1) University of Cologne, Institute of Geography, Cologne, Germany (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), (2) Heidelberg University, Institute of Geography, Heidelberg, Germany
• Research data management infrastructure and services for long-term, interdisciplinary collaborative research centers with a focus on environmental sciences
  Dirk Hoffmeister (1) and Constanze Curdt (1,2) (1) Institute of Geography, University of Cologne, Germany (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), (2) Regional Computing Centre (RRZK), University of Cologne, Germany

Orals

• Neogene fluvial landscape evolution in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert
  Benedikt Ritter (1), Steven A. Binnie (1), Finlay M. Stuart (2), Axel Gerdes (3), Volker Wennrich (1), and Tibor J. Dunai (1) (1) University of Cologne, Institute of Geology & Mineralogy, Cologne, Germany, (2) Isotope Geosciences Unit, Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride, UK, (3) Institute of Geosciences, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

PICO-Session

• Suitability of different digital elevation models for landform classification methods and further geomorphometric analysis in the Atacama Desert
  Dirk Hoffmeister and Tanja Kramm Institute of Geography, University of Cologne, Germany (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
• Using cosmogenic nuclides to trace a steep climate gradient over a short distance in hyperarid northern Chile
  Joel Mohren, Steven A. Binnie, Damián A. López, Benedikt Ritter, and Tibor J. Dunai University of Cologne, Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Department of Geosciences, Cologne, Germany (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)