Tinto River
Encyclopedia
The Río Tinto (ˈri.o ˈtinto, red river) is a river
in southwestern Spain
that originates in the Sierra Morena
mountains of Andalusia
. It flows generally south-southwest, reaching the Gulf of Cádiz at Huelva
.
Since ancient times, a site along the river has been mined for copper
, silver
, gold
, and other minerals. In approximately 3,000 BCE, Iberians
and Tartessians
began mining the site, followed by the Phoenicia
ns, Greeks
, Romans
, Visigoths, and Moors
. After a period of abandonment, the mines were rediscovered in 1556 and the Spanish government began operating them once again in 1724. As a result of the mining, Río Tinto is notable for being very acid
ic (pH
2) and its deep red
dish hue
is due to iron
dissolved in the water
. Acid mine drainage
from the mines leads to severe environment
al problems due to the heavy metal
concentrations in the river. In 1873, the multinational Rio Tinto Company
was formed to operate the mines; by the end of the 20th century it had become one of the world's largest mining companies, although it no longer controls the Rio Tinto mines; these are now owned by EMED Mining plc.
(300-350 Ma) by hydrothermal activities on the sea floor.
The river area has a history of mining
activity since the Tartessans
and the Iberians
started mining in 3000 BCE. The mining continued over the Phoenicia
n era and under the Roman Empire
until the second part of the 15th century: primarily for copper
but also for iron
and manganese
. In the nineteenth century the mining operation started in large scale mainly by mining companies from the United Kingdom
. After the peak of production in 1930 production declined and ended for copper mining in 1986 and for silver
and gold
in 1996.
aerobic
bacteria that dwell in the water. These life forms are considered the likely cause of the high acid content of the water. The subsurface rocks on the river bed contain iron and sulfide
mineral
s on which the bacteria feed.
The extreme conditions in the river may be analogous to other locations in the solar system
thought to contain liquid water, such as subterranean Mars
. NASA
scientists have also directly compared the chemistry
of the water in which the rocks of Meridiani Planum
were deposited in the past with the Río Tinto.http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2005-167 Likewise Jupiter
's moon
Europa
is theorized to contain an acidic ocean of water underneath its ice surface. Thus the river is of interest to astrobiologists
.
Based partially on research done near the Río Tinto river, two NASA scientists reported in February 2005 that they had found strong evidence of present life on Mars (Berger, 2005). NASA officials denied the scientist
s' claims shortly after they were released, however, and one of the scientists, Carol Stoker, backed off from her initial assertions (spacetoday.net, 2005).
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
in southwestern Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
that originates in the Sierra Morena
Sierra Morena
The Sierra Morena is one of the main systems of mountain ranges in Spain.It stretches for 400 kilometres East-West across southern Spain, forming the southern border of the Meseta Central plateau of the Iberian Peninsula, and providing the watershed between the valleys of the Guadiana to the...
mountains of Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
. It flows generally south-southwest, reaching the Gulf of Cádiz at Huelva
Huelva
Huelva is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous region of Andalusia. It is located along the Gulf of Cadiz coast, at the confluence of the Odiel and Tinto rivers. According to the 2010 census, the city has a population of 149,410 inhabitants. The...
.
Since ancient times, a site along the river has been mined for copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
, silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
, and other minerals. In approximately 3,000 BCE, Iberians
Iberians
The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...
and Tartessians
Tartessos
Tartessos or Tartessus was a harbor city and surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula , at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting in the middle of the first millennium BC, for example Herodotus, who describes it as...
began mining the site, followed by the Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
ns, Greeks
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, Romans
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, Visigoths, and Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
. After a period of abandonment, the mines were rediscovered in 1556 and the Spanish government began operating them once again in 1724. As a result of the mining, Río Tinto is notable for being very acid
Acid
An acid is a substance which reacts with a base. Commonly, acids can be identified as tasting sour, reacting with metals such as calcium, and bases like sodium carbonate. Aqueous acids have a pH of less than 7, where an acid of lower pH is typically stronger, and turn blue litmus paper red...
ic (pH
PH
In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...
2) and its deep red
Red
Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...
dish hue
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...
is due to iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
dissolved in the water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
. Acid mine drainage
Acid mine drainage
Acid mine drainage , or acid rock drainage , refers to the outflow of acidic water from metal mines or coal mines. However, other areas where the earth has been disturbed may also contribute acid rock drainage to the environment...
from the mines leads to severe environment
Environment (biophysical)
The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...
al problems due to the heavy metal
Heavy metals
A heavy metal is a member of a loosely-defined subset of elements that exhibit metallic properties. It mainly includes the transition metals, some metalloids, lanthanides, and actinides. Many different definitions have been proposed—some based on density, some on atomic number or atomic weight,...
concentrations in the river. In 1873, the multinational Rio Tinto Company
Rio Tinto Group
The Rio Tinto Group is a diversified, British-Australian, multinational mining and resources group with headquarters in London and Melbourne. The company was founded in 1873, when a multinational consortium of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto river, in Huelva, Spain from the...
was formed to operate the mines; by the end of the 20th century it had become one of the world's largest mining companies, although it no longer controls the Rio Tinto mines; these are now owned by EMED Mining plc.
History
The ore body was deposited in the CarboniferousCarboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
(300-350 Ma) by hydrothermal activities on the sea floor.
The river area has a history of mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
activity since the Tartessans
Tartessos
Tartessos or Tartessus was a harbor city and surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian peninsula , at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting in the middle of the first millennium BC, for example Herodotus, who describes it as...
and the Iberians
Iberians
The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...
started mining in 3000 BCE. The mining continued over the Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n era and under the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
until the second part of the 15th century: primarily for copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
but also for iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
and manganese
Manganese
Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...
. In the nineteenth century the mining operation started in large scale mainly by mining companies from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. After the peak of production in 1930 production declined and ended for copper mining in 1986 and for silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
and gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
in 1996.
Astrobiology
This river has gained recent scientific interest due to the presence of extremophileExtremophile
An extremophile is an organism that thrives in physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most life on Earth. In contrast, organisms that live in more moderate environments may be termed mesophiles or neutrophiles...
aerobic
Aerobic organism
An aerobic organism or aerobe is an organism that can survive and grow in an oxygenated environment.Faculitative anaerobes grow and survive in an oxygenated environment and so do aerotolerant anaerobes.-Glucose:...
bacteria that dwell in the water. These life forms are considered the likely cause of the high acid content of the water. The subsurface rocks on the river bed contain iron and sulfide
Sulfide
A sulfide is an anion of sulfur in its lowest oxidation state of 2-. Sulfide is also a slightly archaic term for thioethers, a common type of organosulfur compound that are well known for their bad odors.- Properties :...
mineral
Mineral
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
s on which the bacteria feed.
The extreme conditions in the river may be analogous to other locations in the solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
thought to contain liquid water, such as subterranean Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
scientists have also directly compared the chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
of the water in which the rocks of Meridiani Planum
Meridiani Planum
Meridiani Planum is a plain located 2 degrees south of Mars' equator , in the westernmost portion of Terra Meridiani. It hosts a rare occurrence of gray crystalline hematite...
were deposited in the past with the Río Tinto.http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2005-167 Likewise Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
's moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
Europa
Europa (moon)
Europa Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is primarily made of silicate rock and probably has an iron core. It has a tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is composed of ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System. This surface is striated by cracks and...
is theorized to contain an acidic ocean of water underneath its ice surface. Thus the river is of interest to astrobiologists
Astrobiology
Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. This interdisciplinary field encompasses the search for habitable environments in our Solar System and habitable planets outside our Solar System, the search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry,...
.
Based partially on research done near the Río Tinto river, two NASA scientists reported in February 2005 that they had found strong evidence of present life on Mars (Berger, 2005). NASA officials denied the scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
s' claims shortly after they were released, however, and one of the scientists, Carol Stoker, backed off from her initial assertions (spacetoday.net, 2005).
Further reading
- Berger, Brian (2005). Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars. Posted Feb. 16, 2005.
- spacetoday.net (2005). NASA denies Mars life reports. Posted Feb 19, 2005.
External links
- Mars Analog Research and Technology Experiment FAQ Protected Landscape Río Tinto http://www.parquemineroderiotinto.com/ With link to the Museo Minero, the fairly new mining museum of the area, containing a permanent exhibition on the history of mining, and geological information.