ORIGINAL PAPER The Nasca and Palpa geoglyphs: geophysical and geochemical data Kerstin Hartsch & Andreas Weller & Silvia Rosas & Gunter Reppchen Received: 25 September 2008 / Revised: 30 April 2009 / Accepted: 30 June 2009 / Published online: 25 July 2009 # Springer-Verlag 2009 Abstract The Nasca geoglyphs in the stone desert in southern Peru are part of our world cultural heritage. These remarkable drawings have roused the interest of scientists from different disciplines. Here we report the results of integrated geophysical, petrophysical, mineralogical, and geochemical investigations of the geoglyphs at six test sites in the stone desert around Nasca and Palpa. The geomag- netic measurements revealed clear indications of subsurface structures that differ from the visible surface geoglyphs. The high-resolution geoelectrical images show unexpected resistivity anomalies underneath the geoglyphs down to a depth of about 2 m. Remarkable structures were revealed in both vertical and lateral directions. No evidence was found of geochemical or mineralogical alterations of the natural geogenic materials (desert pavement environment versus geoglyphs). Neither salts nor other mineral materials were used by the Nasca people to alter or prepare the surfaces of geoglyphs. This supports the hypothesis that the Nasca people simply removed stone material down to the natural hard pan horizon to create the geoglyphs. Keywords Nasca lines . Geophysical investigation . Geochemical investigation Introduction Many of the geoglyphs (drawings on the ground) of the desert districts of Nasca and Palpa in Peru are more than 2,000 years old. Since 1994, they have been under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Orga- nization (UNESCO) human heritage protection. Located in the arid coastal plain, these unique lines and figures cover an area of about 450 km 2 . They depict living creatures, stylized plants, and fantasy beings, as well as geometric figures several kilometres long. These depictions are generally associated with the Nasca culture, which flour- ished between 200 B.C. and 600 A.D. Because of their quantity, origin, size and extent, these artefacts are among archaeology’ s greatest enigmas (Carpio 2005). The features of interest in the stone desert include geometrical or figurative lines (líneas), stone lines (unearthed soil material along the lines and trapezoids) and trapezoids of different shapes, up to several metres wide. The geoglyphs are located in an area 400-450 km to the southeast of the Peruvian capital of Lima in the region between the towns of Palpa and Nasca. The climate is dry with less than 50 mm of rain per year (Eitel et al. 2004), sometimes only 2.4-5.1 mm per year (Montoya et al. 1994). This permanent drought preserves the geoglyphs over extended periods of time. In general, the two desert districts of Nasca and Palpa differ in respect to their K. Hartsch (*) H&G, Dresden, Germany e-mail: K.Hartsch-HuG@t-online.de A. Weller Institute of Geophysics, Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany e-mail: Andreas.Weller@TU-Clausthal.de S. Rosas Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú e-mail: brosas@pucp.edu.pe G. Reppchen University of Applied Sciences (HTW), Faculty Surveying / Cartography, Dresden, Germany e-mail: Reppchen@htw-Dresden.de Naturwissenschaften (2009) 96:1213–1220 DOI 10.1007/s00114-009-0587-9