Riding along my mind wandered to the Arnold movie "Total Recall" and wondered why . . .
Besides being the driest desert in the world with an average rainfall of one millimeter (.o4 inches) a year, the soil composition is similar to what is found on Mars! NASA uses this place to prepare for space missions. Some soils in the Atacama have zero biological activity. If it was not for our blue sky the two landscapes look pretty identical. The desert is the result of a rain shadow caused by the Andes blocking trade winds from the east and a coastal inversion caused by the cold Humboldt current in the Pacific.
Not sure about life on Mars but the Atacama can seem pretty lifeless and forlorn riding through river beds that have been dry for 10's of thousands of years and places that have not seen a drop of rain in 500 years.
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