Vargem Grande Operation, Tamanduá mine.   The second of the mines visited at Vale's Vargem Grande operation was that exploiting the Tamanduá deposit, some 10 km northwest of Capitão do Mato.   The background image is an overview of the current pit.   The lower-left image is looking back towards the side of the pit from which the background image was taken, and shows the steep footwall contact between the grey massive ore and the paler country rock to the left, with revegitated benches above.   In the lower-right image, members of the group are in discussion with Gesner Santos, Vale Master Geologist (left) and Mine Geologist Cliscia Silva (third from right) after traversing from the footwall contact and well into the orebody, crossing both hard and soft massive hematite ore.
Photographs by Mike Porter.