The Andes rise
The longest mountain chain on land reaches most of its height, and casts a rain shadow that makes a desert.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 6.7 million years
- Known to
- ± 2 million years
- Era
- Miocene, Cenozoic
Subduction of the Nazca plate beneath South America raises the central Andes rapidly through the late Miocene, with much of the Altiplano's elevation gained after about 10 million years ago. The consequences ripple outward: the Amazon is reversed, the eastern flank receives some of the heaviest rainfall on Earth, and the western side is starved of moisture, producing the Atacama — the driest non-polar desert on the planet, with some weather stations that have never recorded rain.