Perennial stream discharge in the
hyperarid Atacama Desert of northern Chile during the latest Pleistocene.
Horneck, 2008: Ultraviolet radiation-induced limitation to epilithic microbial growth in arid deserts-Dosimetric experiments in the
hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert.
For the most part, the changes in Aboriginal settlement and social organisation through the long period from 50 to 10 ka are interpreted as environmentally forced responses to shifts from dry to less dry and then to
hyperarid circumstances during the LGM.
We discuss the specific environmental conditions that led to the King Valley fire, show that remote-sensing can document effects of fire in a
hyperarid environment, and evaluate effects of fire in relation to changes in communities of plants by comparing standard transects in burned and unburned communities.
Arndt SK, Arampatsis C, Foetzki A, Li X, Zeng F, Zhang X (2004) Contrasting patterns of leaf solute accumulation and salt adaptation in four phreatophytic desert plants in a
hyperarid desert with saline groundwater.
Heating of intruding air masses over coastal deserts is not strong enough to destabilize the cold and dry air masses, thus resulting in an arid to
hyperarid climate.
(The majority of the UAE, consisting of sand desert, was classified as "
hyperarid", while the high peaks southwards from Hatta to Wadi Jizzi were "semi-arid".) Such a classification seems to imply the influence of the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman on the climate of the Hajar Mountains and the Gulf of Oman coast, exclusive of the Ru'us al-Jibal.
Presently, the long-term climatic prognosis is for a return to the
hyperarid conditions of 18,000 to 12,000 years ago, when intertropical aridity was world-wide (Williams 1984, Whitford 2002).
(2007) proposed that supergene copper oxide minerals were later replaced by atacamite following the onset of
hyperarid climatic conditions.
Specimens analyzed were from muscle and visceral tissues in excavated, naturally mummified human bodies buried in that
hyperarid desert during the past 9 millennia.
This produced the
hyperarid climates that rapidly reached their greatest extent and development during the Pleistocene and the Holocene (e.g., Simpson, 1975; Villagran et al., 1983; Simpson & Neff, 1985; Simpson & Todzia, 1990; Hinojosa & Villagran, 1997).