| | | Serra Pelada gold rush, Para, Brazil, 1980s
Looks like the set of a big budget Star Wars type movie... or a re-enactment of some African colonial period war... with a couple of red coats in there being overwhelmed...
In the early 1980s, Serra Pelada became known as one of the world’s most notorious gold mining areas when over 100,000 freelance miners flocked there to engage in open air gold mining excavations in vast, dangerous, and crowded conditions. The Serra Pelada has essentially been closed since the late 1980s and gold mining is no longer possible due to flooding and government prohibitions.
The Pepita Canaã gold nugget has a gross weight of 60.82 kgs and contains 52.33 kgs of gold, or 1682 troy ounces of gold. The “Canaan" gold nugget was purchased by the Banco Central do Brazil in 1984, and is now on display in the “Gold Room" of the central bank’s money museum (Museu de Valores do Banco Central in Brazil) in Brazil’s federal capital Brasilia.
Notably, the source nugget from which the Pepita Canaã nugget came was actually larger, but it split into several pieces while being removed from the ground.
“Pepita Canaã" – The largest surviving gold nugget, on display at the Brazilian central bank headquarters, Brasilia |
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