February 9, 2023 | ISSUE 62

SkySat • Prominent Hill Mine, Australia • November 25, 2017

In this week’s issue:

The booms and busts of mining
Waterways impact local landscapes
A Dove peers over the Himalayas
Wildfires burn in Chile

Having trouble viewing images? Then read this issue on Medium!

FEATURE STORY

Mines

Earth is a treasure. But it’s also a treasure chest full of usable riches. Our species hasn’t come across a resource we won’t extract. And if we haven’t extracted it, it may just mean we haven’t figured out a feasible way to do it yet (e.g. asteroid mining). Today’s society is propelled by this subterranean supply, which provides both the raw material for industry's engine and the fuel to power it—not to mention virtually every other object in modern life. But it’s not without its drawbacks. There’s only so much you can reap when you only extract instead of sow.

Despite their distance from Earth’s interior, satellites can help miners locate deposits and manage operations once they’ve broken ground. But satellites also spot mining’s impacts, like open-pit gashes the size of towns, illegal operations sprouting from dense forests, or deserts turned teal from lithium evaporation pools. So this week we’re digging in and prospecting some ways in which outer space gets involved with inner Earth.

SkySat • Salar de Olaroz, Argentina • November 24, 2017

The history of the constructed world is also one of resource extraction. Everything we make, use, and eat either comes from Earth’s surface or below it. And even though we’ve been unearthing resources for millennia, we’re still developing new tools to find deposits and make sure they’re collected responsibly. Satellites can map and measure geologic, vegetative, and soil features in a region for exactly this purpose.

SkySat • Grasberg mine, Central Papua, Indonesia • August 4, 2017

Like the pile of pistachio shells that accumulate next to a snacker, tailings are the slushy pools of waste separated from the valued mineral. As you may imagine, they’re often filled with toxic chemicals that can create an environmental hazard if released. It’s estimated these breaching events have happened on average once every 2-3 years since 1965, each with devastating consequences. Last year, a tailing failure flooded a nearby town after a wall holding the waste collapsed.

PlanetScope • Jagersfontein, South Africa • September 9 - 12, 2022

A study by CanBreach found that most tailing failures result from drainage issues and hazardous weather. Understanding its causes and preparing for future events is crucial as the climate becomes more unpredictable and the demand for valuable minerals rises. Engineers can use satellites to monitor these pools remotely instead, saving them the laborious and often dangerous task of measuring in person.

PlanetScope • Diavik Diamond Mine, Canada • September 21, 2016

Rarer minerals are required as technology advances. It’s perhaps a little ironic that clean energy is replacing extractive resources like coal and gas, yet is built with far more minerals. Electric cars need six times the mineral inputs as their traditional counterparts, and demand is spiking as these renewable sources rise in popularity. Gas and oil are being replaced by a consortium of -iums, with lithium at the helm for its role in rechargeable batteries.

SkySat • Salar de Atacama, Chile • February 5, 2023

Illegal mining is on the rise too, acting as a canary in the coal mine for systemic issues like harmful deforestation policies and mistreatment of Indigenous land rights. But satellites are well-equipped for spotting illicit mining in remote areas and over vast distances. Journalists at the New York Times remotely found over 1,200 airstrips used for illegal mining in the Amazon rainforest. And other researchers track artisanal mines emerging from the forest like veins of gold.

PlanetScope • Artisanal mining, Obineben, Ghana • March 12, 2019 - April 17, 2022

Yet concerns abound even when mining is sanctioned. In Arizona, two mining companies are pursuing the creation of another copper mine next to the San Carlos Apache Tribe’s reservation. The billion plus tons of copper in the ground is crucial for building more clean energy infrastructure. But the project is pitting sustainability targets against environmental justice reform.

Planetscope • Copper mines east of Phoenix, AZ, USA • November 13, 2022

Use it, or leave it in the ground, that is the question. One that even decarbonization leaders like Germany are grappling with. After the EU imposed sanctions on Russian oil and gas, countries are burrowing into untouched reserves even as they contradict their own broader policy targets. For example, Germany is aiming to phase out all coal by 2030 instead of 2038, but at a compromise of tapping a new coal reserve and moving a village in the process.

PlanetScope • Lützerath, Germany • December 27, 2022

Until we start mining asteroids, all the resources we need (including those needed to mine asteroids) are right below our feet. And there’ll be corporations mining and dining investors as long as the money flows thanks to the demands of people. There are sustainable and environmental ways to mine though, even if some things may be better left in the ground.

SkySat • Gold mine surround Aniamoa, Ghana • July 18, 2022

Remote Sensations

Waterways

Australia’s once-in-a-century rainfall along its coasts has been trickling into the continent’s interior, transforming the Outback’s dry landscapes to a vibrant—and startling—green. The overflow of water is helping vegetation grow but also stranding some communities from the rest of the country.

PlanetScope • Bedourie, Australia • December 6, 2022 - February 2, 2023

PlanetScope • PlanetScope • Bedourie, Australia • February 2, 2023

PlanetScope • PlanetScope • Bedourie, Australia • February 2, 2023

In other waterway spectacles, the Betsiboka Estuary is the mouth of Madagascar’s largest river. Decades of heavy logging have accelerated erosion along the coast. Pair that with heavy rains and you get a lot of red-hued sediment mucking the water but not its visual splendor.

PlanetScope • Betsiboka Estuary, Madagascar • May 4, July 30, & September 24, 2022

Scooch up the coast a bit and you'll see another mangrove-covered estuary with a tapestry of Monet-like colors.

PlanetScope • Mahajamba River Estuary, Madagascar • January 4, 2023

Satellite explainer

8k Peaks

This image is the closest we’ll come to cresting any one of these peaks. Last week we had one of our Dove satellites take an extremely oblique photo of the Himalayas as it orbited over Afghanistan. There are only 14 mountain peaks in the world that are over 8,000 meters tall, and 9 of them are in the Himalayas. We captured all of them in this image, but the perspective makes things look a little strange. The satellite was really high (500 km), looking really far, and the mountains are really tall (enough superlatives for you?). All in all giving the false impression that Kanchenjunga is taller than Everest.

PlanetScope • Himalayas, Asia • January 21, 2023

In the News

Chilean Wildfires

Nearly 300 wildfires are burning in Chile as a heatwave pushed a landscape already scourged by megadrought over the edge. Strong easterly winds further fanned the flames and helped the fires rapidly burn almost 300,000 hectares (1,160 square miles, or about the size of Rhode Island) within the country.

PlanetScope • Provincia de Concepción, Chile • February 3, 2023

Weekly Revisit

Last week we broke the bank and visited some infrastructure costing over $1 billion, aka megaprojects. So click the link in case you missed it and check out the whole archive if you’re extra curious.