2024 Satellite Image Shows Gold Mining Expanding Around Ghana's 19-Square-Mile Lake Bosumtwi
Updated
Updated · Livescience.com · May 26
2024 Satellite Image Shows Gold Mining Expanding Around Ghana's 19-Square-Mile Lake Bosumtwi
2 articles · Updated · Livescience.com · May 26
A 2024 satellite photo shows gold mining around Lake Bosumtwi has increased significantly over the past decade, exposing more visible gold around Ghana's only natural lake.
Advances in mining technology accelerated extraction, bringing shallow gold veins to the surface around the crater lake and making the change starkly visible from space.
Lake Bosumtwi covers about 19 square miles near Kumasi and is sacred to the Asante people, who regard it as a spiritual site.
The lake was formed about 1 million years ago when a roughly 1-kilometer-wide meteor struck Earth, fracturing the crust and helping create the mineral-rich veins now being mined.
Researchers say the well-preserved impact structure also offers clues to rare rampart craters on Earth and similar formations seen on Mars and other planetary bodies.
Earth's best-preserved impact crater is a window to Mars. Is gold mining worth closing it forever?
Satellites show escalating damage to a sacred lake. Can Ghana’s government stop the illegal mining destroying it?