'Rivers of gold' rush through the Peruvian Amazon in stunning NASA photo
By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer 14 hours ago
They look like pools of pure gold; they're actually pits of toxic mud.
Mining pits glitter like gold in this aerial photo of the Peruvian Amazon
(Image: © NASA/ ISS)
The Peruvian Amazon glitters like gold in a gorgeous new photo taken aboard the International Space Station.
While that glow is just sunlight reflecting off hundreds of pits of muddy water, there is plenty of gold in them thar hills. Each glistening pool is a gold-prospecting pit, according to NASA's Earth Observatory website, likely dug by independent miners looking to unearth some of the Amazon's ancient treasures.
"Each pit is surrounded by de-vegetated areas of muddy soil," Justin Wilkinson, a grant specialist at Texas State University, wrote for Earth Observatory. "These deforested tracts follow the courses of ancient rivers that deposited sediments, including gold."
Peru's Madre de Dios state, shown in this picture, is home to one of the largest independent gold mining industries on Earth, Wilkinson wrote. As many as 30,000 small-scale miners (working outside of government regulations) prospect illegally in the area, tearing up the rainforest with excavators and dump trucks in order to unearth the gold underneath.
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https://www.livescience.com/nasa-peru-amazon-gold-pits-photo.html
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