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Environmental analysis reveals extensive mercury contamination from informal Amazonian gold mining, highlighting severe ecological and human health threats.
The price of gold is rising exponentially, reaching a value of up to 5000 USD per ounce in recent months, while it was only 1072 USD in 2015 due to international economic uncertainty. The World Gold Council estimates that 8.5% of the global gold production between 2014 and 2024 was provided by the Amazon region through informal/illegal mining.1 The environmental consequences of this activity are devastating, since dangerous substances such as mercury and cyanide are used for gold extraction. It is estimated that for every kilogram of gold extracted, up to 5 kg of mercury are discarded into the environment, thus contaminating water sources and threatening people's health.
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Ruiz et al. (2026) studied this question.
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