Ancient Peru Pyramid Spotted by Satellite

A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru's Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.

Nicola Masini and Rosa Lasaponara of Italy's National Research Council (CNR) discovered the pyramid by analyzing images from the satellite Quickbird, which they used to penetrate the Peruvian soil.

The researchers investigated a test area along the river Nazca. Covered by plants and grass, it was about a mile away from Cahuachi's archaeological site, which contains the remains of what is believed to be the world's biggest mud city.

Via Quickbird, Masini and colleagues collected hi-resolution infrared and multispectral images. After the researchers optimized the images with special algorithms, the result was a detailed visualization of a pyramid extending over a 9,000-square-mile area.

Wow. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack. From the markers and outlines, it looks like a substantial city or gathering place under all of that mud and nature. I wonder how long it will take them to get cleared to strip back the layers of sediment and uncover it all.

One can only imagine how much history and culture are buried in there. If it is covered primarily in mud, a large amount of the non-metallic items should be preserved pretty well.

Good find.