Tinto River

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Photograph of Tinto River. (Credit - Carol Stoker)

The Río Tinto is a river in southwestern Spain, in the Sierra Morena mountains of Andalusia. It flows generally south-southwest, reaching the Gulf of Cádiz at Huelva. The Río Tinto, or Red River in English, is notable for being very acidic, and has a deep reddish hue due to the iron dissolved in the water. The river area has a history of mining activity since the Phoenician era: primarily for copper but also some iron and manganese.

This river has gained recent scientific interest due to the presence of extremophile 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 minerals 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.[1] 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 scientists' claims shortly after they were released, however, and one of the scientists, Carol Stoker, backed off from her initial assertions (spacetoday.net, 2005).

Tharsis on this river was the location of King Solomon's mines. From this area got Iberia the Tharsis in the Bible and later on the sephardic jews their home name.