Resumen en inglés

A study of the footprint left by gold mining was carried out through a multitemporal analysis of the upper and lower (middle) basin of the San Jorge River, located in the northernmost area, of the South American plate in the jurisdiction of the departments of Antioquia and Cordova. The evaluation period of the analysis was 10 years, between 2010 and 2020. The general objective of this research work was to identify the footprint left by open-pit gold mining in a sector of the San Jorge river basin for the period 2010 -2020, through the visual interpretation of medium and highresolution images. For which, different geoprocessing tools and cartographic processes were implemented such as photointerpretation, treatment and analysis of satellite images such as Rapid Eye, PlanetScope, Landsat 7 and Sentinel 2, using the Qgis and ArcMap software. This study determined that in the period 2010-2020 there was a mining footprint of 9.429,057 hectares (ha) in the area under study. The low-medium account of the San Jorge River was the most affected with 8451.55 hectares (ha), especially the sub-basin of the Ciénaga de Ayapel with an intervened area of 7197.81 ha, which implies that at least 18 % of its territory has been in contact with gold mining, highlighting the micro-basins; Monteadero, Escobilla, Trejos, Quebradona and Popales. On the other hand, this work shows that at a general level the period with the greatest growth dynamics was 2010-2015, on the contrary, the 2015-2020 period showed greater stability in the growth of the areas affected by said activity.