The Driest Place On Earth Has Erupted In Blooms

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Chile’s Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth, and one of the planets most inhospitable environments. But thanks to historic rainfall in 2015, the drought-stricken desert was briefly transformed into a picturesque garden of wildflowers and plant life.

A series of rare storms last March brought .96 inches of rain in one day to Atacama. It may not seem like much, but it was the equivalent of 15 years of rain in a single day. All that rainfall watered seeds that had been dormant for decades, creating an explosion of pinks, purples, yellows and oranges.

In fact, more than 200 rare and never-before-seen plant species blossomed at Atacama. That’s not all, the burst of plant life brought out many of the area’s little-seen native species like birds, rodents, lizards and insects to feed on the new landscape, too.

 

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