Q 01/05

The Atacama is the driest non-polar place on Earth and also the world's largest example of which landscape type, named for what supplies its scant moisture?

A) Cold desert

B) Fog desert

C) Salt desert

D) Coastal desert

Answer · why

B) Fog desert

Marine fog rolling in off the Pacific supplies the only moisture many of its plants ever get.

Q 02/05

The desert runs along the Pacific coast of northern Chile in a strip roughly how long?

A) 1,600 km

B) 2,100 km

C) 2,600 km

D) 3,200 km

Answer · why

A) 1,600 km

It covers about 105,000 square kilometres, rising to 128,000 if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are counted.

Q 03/05

Which cold flow of Pacific water, moving north along the coast, reinforces the desert's extreme dryness?

A) The Benguela Current

B) The Humboldt Current

C) The California Current

D) The Agulhas Current

Answer · why

B) The Humboldt Current

The current chills the air above it, so moisture forms fog rather than rain clouds.

Q 04/05

The desert sits in a two-sided rain shadow between the Andes and which other chain of mountains?

A) The Cordillera Blanca

B) The Serra do Mar

C) The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

D) The Chilean Coast Range

Answer · why

D) The Chilean Coast Range

Together the ranges block moisture from both the Pacific and the Atlantic.

Q 05/05

Roughly how much rain does the desert receive in an average year?

A) 1 mm

B) 15 mm

C) 60 mm

D) 150 mm

Answer · why

B) 15 mm

Some individual weather stations have never recorded rain at all.