Another big hole… this time with evolution!

As a followup to this post, someone pointed out the Wikipedia entry for the Berkeley Pit in Montana. Much the same sort of thing…a  massive open-pit copper mining operation. However, this one is shut down, and has been allowed to return to nature. This has meant filling with rain and ground water to a depth of over 900 feet. The water has absorbed chemicals from the exposed rock, and the water, with nowhere to go, has become loaded with interesting and toxic chemicals.

One side benefit of this is that it has proven to be an example of evolution in action:

New fungal and bacterial species have been found to have adapted to the harsh conditions inside the pit. Intense competition for the limited resources caused these species to evolve the production of highly toxic compounds to improve survivability; natural products such as Berkeleydione, berkeleytrione [3] and Berkeley acid [4] have been isolated from these organisms which show selective activity against cancer cell lines. 

Neat! Once again… evolution being demonstrated in the wild.