could the Earth purify itself if human industries stopped?

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I recently watched a video that mentioned the “toxic pit problem” of how closed mines turn into toxic lakes full of rainwater and harmful chemicals. Some companies are trying to fix them, but I was wondering if the Earth could “purify” itself if left completely alone?
Like, let’s say all of humanity disappeared tomorrow, could the harmful chemicals be filtered out or dissolved or changed after a billion years?

In: Planetary Science

15 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There’s a really fascinating book on this that I would recommend if you’re interested. It’s called “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman. He details what would happen to the world if humans were suddenly removed. What would happen to our cities, our monuments, how would nature recover and reclaim what we did. It was very interesting!

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