Billions in gold, jewels found in Indian temple

Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Kerala, India

NEW DELHI, India (July 4, 2011) - A vast treasure trove worth an estimated $22 billion dollars was unearthed in a Hindu temple.

The stash of gold coins, jewels, and precious stones unearthed at a Hindu temple in India is expected to grow in value on Monday as officials open the last two secret vaults sealed for nearly 150 years.

The discovery has instantly turned the 16th-century Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple into one of the wealthiest religious institutions in the country, prompting a government move to fortify security around it.

The four vaults already opened in recent days at the temple in Trivandrum, the capital of the southern state of Kerala, held a vast bounty that unofficial estimates peg at $22 billion.

Other treasures unearthed so far include statues of gods and goddesses (devas and devis) made of solid gold and studded with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones, crowns and necklaces, all given as gifts to the temple over the centuries. More

• Do the "gods" really need our gold? (NRI)
• Temple's subterranean vaults yield treasure (Guardian)
• India temple treasure search team suspends search (BBC)
• India treasure unearthed in Kerala temple (BBC)
• Value of treasure soars to Rupies 75 crore
  
• Lightly guarded Indian temple laden with treasures (AP)
• Treasure worth 500 mil found in 16th cent temple (July 2)
  

Civilization collapsed after cutting key trees

When the Nazca cleared forests to grow crops, fields washed away leaving desert.

The ancient Nazca people, who once flourished in the valleys of south coastal Peru, literally fell with the trees they chopped down, new research has concluded.

The Nazca caused their own collapse when they cleared their forests in order to make way for agriculture, thus exposing the landscape to wind and flood erosion, according to a study published in the journal Latin American Antiquity.

Best known for carving hundreds of geometric lines and images of animals and birds in the Peruvian desert that are fully visible from the air, the Nazca flourished between the first century B.C. and the fifth century A.D.

During these centuries they made sophisticated ceramics and textiles and amassed one of South America's largest collection of human trophy heads. Then, between 500 and 600 A.D., this enigmatic civilization slid into oblivion.

"It was not just that they were hit by a huge mega El Nino in about 500 A.D., but that they had already cleared their forests of huarango, a tree that lives in highly arid zones and stabilizes the soil with some of the deepest roots of any tree known-and can live up to 1000 years," Alex J. Chepstow-Lusty a palaeoecologist from the French Institute for Andean Studies in Lima, Peru, told Discovery News. More

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