Answer:
The correct answer is B. The rush of people looking for gold damaged California's environment.
Explanation:
The California gold rush was the large-scale, stormy migration of people from all over the world to California, which arose after gold was found there on January 24, 1848, and lasted until 1856.
Initially, rumors about the discovery only spread in the southwestern United States, and the influx of people who were triggered by gold fever to the site was limited to thousands. After a year, reports about the gold fields spread around the world and the gold rush reached a volume of hundreds of thousands of gold diggers. Their journey lasted for months, was tough and cost many lives. Once in California, they found an area where lawlessness prevailed, so that they had to organize their claim rights themselves.
From 1848 to 1856, more than 300,000 people migrated to California and an estimated 340,000 kilos of gold were mined there. The number of Indians fell from 150,000 to 50,000 in that period and gold mining caused a lot of environmental damage. The California gold rush had global economic consequences and contributed to California becoming the 31st state of America in 1850.
