Mining

Trapped inside this ice core is evidence that suggests humans have been polluting the atmosphere with lead for thousands of years.

Humans Polluted the Air Much Earlier Than Previously Thought

Ice cores suggest that humans have been polluting the air with lead for at least 2,000 years

Child coal miners with mules in Gary, West Virginia in 1908. Working conditions were brutal for coal miners, and unionization was violently suppressed.

The Coal Mining Massacre America Forgot

The mountains of southern West Virginia are riddled with coal—and bullets

Sourdough starters can be used to make all kinds of things: –pancakes, waffles, even cake–but the staple is sourdough bread.

Gold Miners Kept Their Sourdough Starters Alive By Cuddling Them

San Francisco-area miners used sourdough starters as a replacement for commercial leavening agents

Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park

Mining Exploration Begins in Michigan's Porcupine Mountains

Michigan is divided over a mining company's plans to drill for copper in a beloved state park

With its peace accords up in the air, the Colombia's diverse ecosystems face an uncertain future. Shown here: the valley of Cocora near Salento, Colombia.

How Colombia's Failed Peace Treaty Could Wreak Havoc on Its Diversity-Rich Ecosystems

A potential influx of legal and illegal mining leaves the country's megadiverse landscapes—and the communities who depend on them—in jeopardy

A sun-bleached skull is evidence of the first recorded jaguar predation on a black bear, linked to the big cat roaming this terrain.

The Return of the Great American Jaguar

The story of tracking a legendary feline named El Jefe through the Arizona mountains

A brittle star swimming over a field of polymetallic nodules

Future Deep Sea Mining Sites Are Bursting With Rare Marine Species

The area is full of rare metals, but a new study shows it's a hub for deep-sea diversity, too

Peru Cracks Down on Illegal Gold Miners

A boom in outlaw mining activity in the last five years is polluting rivers, poisoning people and destroying forests in the Peruvian Amazon

Will Luxembourg Lead the Race for Space Mining?

The tiny nation announced its private industry partners for asteroid mining

Researchers once thought these holes were from food prep. They were wrong.

Neolithic People Were Also Strip Miners

Quarries are changing how archaeologists think about the Stone Age

Soon, space miners could lay claim to minerals in asteroids like this one.

Get Your Pickaxe and Spacecraft Ready, Space Mining Might be Legal Very Soon

The new Space Act would open up the potentially lucrative field of asteroid mining

Artisanal Pizza is Boosting the Coal Industry

Pizzerias are a new and growing market for coal companies

This Indonesian Volcano Erupts Electric-Blue Streams Of Molten Sulfur

Glowing blue rivers illuminate Java’s Blue Fire Crater.

Animas River flowing through Santa Rita Park a week after the Gold King Mine spill in Colorado

The American West is Full of Old Mines Threatening to Pollute Waterways

Lessons can be learned from the recent spill in the Animas River

A giant truck carrying tar sand from a mine in Canada

Utah Has the First Tar Sands Mine in the U.S.

The mine will operate on land in the Book Cliffs area

A Scottish Duke Transformed This Abandoned Coal Mine into a Cosmological Land-Art Park

A scarred landscape in rural Scotland has become a grassy multiverse now open for exploration

Discharge from the Gold King Mine colored Colorado's Animas River a distinct golden hue on August 6.

Why Tens of Thousands of Toxic Mines Litter the U.S. West

The spill in Colorado's Animas River highlights the problem of wastewater building up in abandoned mines

Sand Mining on the banks of the Sita River near Mabukala bridge in Brahmavar, India

The Demand for Sand is so High There are Illegal Sand Mining Operations

Only certain kinds of sand can be used in construction and mining it causes problems

Diamond crystal on kimberlite from Eastern Siberia

This African Plant Leads the Way to Diamond Deposits

A palm-like plant seems to grow only on top of diamond-rich deposits called kimberlite pipes

The abandoned city of Machu Picchu is one legacy of the Spanish conquest of the Incas. Traces of air pollution in a Peruvian ice cap are another.

Spanish Conquest of the Incas Caused Air Pollution to Spike

A sample of Peruvian ice has revealed a surge in pollution linked to mining that wasn't exceeded until the Industrial Revolution

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