Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire

CHILE | Sunday, 2 November 2014 | Views [751] | View Smaller Image

Just across Magellan's Strait lies the Pali Aike volcanic area, a reminder of the impressive natural forces which have shaped the local landscape. While millenia of erosion has left only remnants of volcanic activity behind in this particular site, with the Andes mountains nearby it's a poignant reminder of how small incremental changes, as simple as erosion from rain can, over timescales of such length to be unrecognisable to humans, reduce thousands of metres of mountains to the landscapes seen in this image.

Tags: volcano, volcanic, pali aike, chile, magellan

Tierra del Fuego consists primarily of an expansive archipelago, separated by spectacular fjords, with a larger landmass on its Eastern side. On the North-Eastern side the landscape is primarily grassland steppe and cold climate desert. As we moved across towards the North-Eastern side of the island we came across a lone Guanaco (Lama guanicoe) as the sun began to set while rain fell in the distance. The Guanaco is a camelid and is the wild form of the more commonly known domesticated Llama. It is still widespread across wild areas of Southern South America.

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Tierra del Fuego bears the scars of natural gas and petroleum exploration. Chile has always been nervous about its reliance on neighbouring countries, particularly Argentina, for it's non-renewable energy resources.

From the 1940's Tierra del Fuego accounted for the vast majority of Chile's fossil fuel production and was considered particularly important at the time as renewable energy sources, which have now become a significant and sustainable source of Chile's energy, were far less developed. From the regions economic heyday in the mid to late twentieth century the countries focus on renewable energy and less productive reserves have reduced the physical presence of this part of the regions past. However its legacy is still very visible, as you can see from this image of one of the many remaining on-shore oil wells.

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Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire

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