For decades, Serra Pelada was one of the most extraordinary gold-mining sites on Earth. At its peak in the early 1980s, as many as 80,000 miners crowded into the Pará site, digging into the ground by hand and carrying ore up the enormous pit. The images became famous around the world, turning a remote part of Brazil into a symbol of the country’s gold rush.
More than 30 years after the operation faded, the idea of mining there again is back. That does not mean Serra Pelada is reopening tomorrow. The former pit is now a lake, and any serious return to large-scale mining would have to deal with old infrastructure, environmental concerns, legal disputes and the cost of building a modern operation. Still, the possibility has attracted renewed attention because people involved with the historic mining area continue to believe that valuable mineral resources remain beneath and around the old workings.
