Serra Pelada (English: "Naked Mountain Range") is a Brazilian village, district of the municipality of Curionópolis, in the southeast of Pará.

The mine was made infamous by the still images taken by Alfredo Jaar and later by Sebastião Salgado and the first section of Godfrey Reggio's 1988 documentary Powaqqatsi, showing an anthill of workers moving vast amounts of ore by hand.

Because of the chaotic nature of the operation estimating the number of miners was difficult, but at least 100,000 people were thought to be present, making it one of the largest mines in the world.

[3] In January 1980, farmer Genésio Ferreira da Silva hired a geologist to investigate whether gold he found on his property was part of a larger deposit.

Miners would often pay exorbitant prices to have taxis drive them from the nearest town to the end of a dirt track; from there, they would walk the remaining distance—some 15 kilometres (9 mi)—to the site.