http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141212-nazca-lines-greenpeace-archaeology-science/
Careful removal of the dark varnished crust from the lighter-colored desert floor created the lines, called geoglyphs, made more than 1,500 years ago by ancient Andean people. Native Americans as far north as California used a similar method for creating desert drawings, most famously the Blythe "Intaglios," depicting large human figures.
Desert varnishes form very slowly, in some cases over tens of thousands of years. How these coatings, only about as thick as a sheet of paper, grow on desert rocks is poorly understood, according to Joseph McAuliffe of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Bacteria baking in the desert sun may actually concentrate darker minerals on exposed rock surfaces, he suggests, with the varnish essentially serving as a microbial sunscreen.
The Greenpeace activists drew Peru's ire as much for potential damage done to this delicate desert surface as for trespassing. The lines "are absolutely fragile," Peru's Deputy Culture Minister Luis Jaime Castillo told the Guardian: "You walk there and the footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years."
Thats right, clean up all the paint with their tongues and replace every pebble to its original position with their tongues
At least they didnt use paint but what looks like vinyl cut out letters (and does anyone else see the irony in that?)
This picture just sickens me. These animals are destroying something (in part) created by "Mother Earth"...the very thing they've sworn to save.