[narrator] Gold mining prodigy...
[Parker] Hey, that's $3 million
right there on the table.
[narrator] Parker Schnabel is searching
for his next big score...
[Parker] This is wild.
[bleep] yeah.
[narrator] Deep in the jungles of Brazil.
There's a huge amount of conflict over mining.
-[explosion] -[Parker] The only way
to understand is to come here and see it.
That is [bleep] cool.
And if there is a opportunity for us to invest,
then I wanna look at those opportunities.
Look. Look. That's [bleep] gold.
[Parker] Look at these bad boys.
I did get fitted for a bulletproof vest though.
That's a first.
[dramatic music playing]
-[Parker] Wow. -Holy [bleep].
[Larissa] This is really big.
I would love to find an avenue into hardrock mining.
[dramatic music playing]
I think we're gonna see melted gold.
They do 5 to 6 kilos per day.
It's a model that I would love to replicate someday.
[Danny] Parker's in love.
He's literally fallen
for the hardrock industry.
He's just like, "I want the power.
I want the size.
I want it all."
[dramatic music playing]
[opening theme music playing]
Between Porto Velho and Serra Pelada,
I'm like, "[bleep] that was a lot."
I'm definitely kind of wanting to not be on a weird,
barely or "not legal at all" mine site.
Yeah. Serra Pelada, it was...
It was a bit of a grind,
-wasn't it? -[Diego] Yes.
-Kind of drained with that. -I think Larissa's translated
every single word into Portuguese language.
[chuckles]
[narrator] After prospecting in Porto Velho
and Serra Pelada,
Parker and crew are traveling 1,100 miles
through the State of Mato Grosso to Pocone,
the home of Brazilian hardrock mining.
[Larissa] It's like a very long journey.
Pocone and the surroundings
is the region in Mato Grosso where they're...
producing most of the gold in the state.
You're right.
-People are exploring hardrock too. -[Parker] Oh, nice.
-So, I mean, it's logical that we go there, right? -[Parker] Yeah.
And we could always see a big hardrock mine
that's just owned by a person
and not a big public company.
I'm looking forward to it.
[narrator] Hardrock mining means big bucks.
And in the States, most mines are run by corporations.
But in Pocone, smaller scale,
independently-owned operations
dominate the landscape,
outputting an average of three tons of gold a year,
worth over $190 million.
[Parker] I would love to find an avenue
into hardrock mining, really.
Pocone seems very interesting.
It's a side of hardrock mine
that I've always wondered where they were
'cause I've never been around one,
and here they are built from the ground up.
[narrator] To get to this hardrock gold mecca,
the crew are driving through the largest
tropical wetland in the world,
the Pantanal.
[Larissa] This is amazing.
I love it.
[narrator] A 42-million-acre reserve,
larger than the state of Florida,
with over 4,700 species of plants and animals...
Oh, what the [bleep] is that?
It's a caiman.
[gasps]
[Danny] [bleep].
[narrator] Including millions of yacare caiman.
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] Oh, that's [bleep] cool.
Look at them.
[narrator] Adults can grow up to nearly 10 feet
and survive on a diet of fish, birds,
and sometimes capybara.
[Danny] [bleep] look at those capybara.
Do you think they're just surrounding them
and it's like, "Yeah, that's our dinner
in the middle there. Let's keep it fresh."
-[hissing] -What the [bleep].
That one does not like us at all.
That one does not like us. Look at him.
That was really cool. Wow.
[Diego] One of them is facing me.
The noises.
It's cool.
[Danny] We need a bit of adventure,
like proper adventure on this trip.
-You know what I mean? -[chuckles]
[Larissa] We still have a long way to go.
[dramatic music playing]
Probably we should try to find a place to sleep.
[narrator] The crew have arranged to stay
in a remote fishing village.
Yeah, there's some lights on.
[Parker] What are we doing?
-All right. -[Danny] Jesus.
-Okay, you go first, Diego. -[Diego] Okay.
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa in Portuguese]
-[Danny] Well, he's happy. -[Diego in Portuguese]
-[Larissa in Portuguese] -[Juca speaking]
[Diego] Juca?
-Parker. -[in Portuguese]
-[Danny] Danny. -[in Portuguese]
[in Portuguese]
-[in Portuguese] -[in Portuguese]
-Wow. -[Danny] What? What's that?
He just said that his son
used to be a gold miner.
Wow. Where?
-[in Portuguese] -Ah.
-[Juca in Portuguese] -[in Portuguese]
-[in Portuguese]
[in Portuguese]
-[Larissa] Mmm-hmm. -[in Portuguese]
[Parker] That's cool.
[Danny] Look at this one.
[Luiz in Portuguese]
-Really? -[Luiz in Portuguese]
What?
[Diego] Was attacked by a jaguar.
[Danny] Oh, wow.
[Diego] Tried to crush his skull?
-[Danny] Wow. -[Diego] Do you see that?
-Aww. -[Diego] Do you see that?
-[Danny] Oh, my. -[in Portuguese]
-[Diego in Portuguese] -[in Portuguese]
This is the right place for finding jaguars.
-Really? -[Diego] Yes.
[Juca in Portuguese]
-[Diego in Portuguese] -[in Portuguese]
[Diego] Tomorrow morning.
Hang on. That's... That would happen to be...
What, tomorrow morning, this guy can take us
-to see jaguars? -[Larissa] Yes.
[Parker] Dan, you and I have spent
six months together in South America
-and never seen a cat. -[Danny] Speak the truth.
-Yeah. -Yeah, we should do that.
[Danny] Promise you, they're gonna see it.
[Danny] How [bleep] cool is that?
What time do we have to get up?
[in Portuguese]
-Ah. -6:00 in the morning,
we have to be already in the port leaving.
[Danny] Cool. Okay. Amazing.
Well, we've come to the right place.
-[Diego] Yeah. -[Larissa] Yeah.
[Danny] Yeah, we've made the decision
to take a little detour.
-Where can we sleep? -[in Portuguese]
Ah, okay. Let's follow him, then.
When we do it, when we shoot in the trail, we don't...
We always try and take the opportunity
to have a little bit of fun
and do something that's unique to the country,
and seeing jaguars in the wild is like bucket list stuff.
[Diego] Now, this is... Yeah, this is... This is fine.
We still have our hammocks, right?
[Parker] Yeah. Perfect.
-[Larissa] Oh, yeah. Perfect. -[Diego] Yeah.
We can put the hammocks in here.
[Larissa] Through here till there. Yeah.
-Amazing. -[in Portuguese]
-[Larissa in Portuguese] -[in Portuguese]
[Larissa] Wow. Well, perfect.
He say he can cook for us.
[Danny] Amazing.
So, yeah, we have everything we need. [chuckles]
It feels really special that I can bring these guys
to meet a side of Brazil that is so important.
This is the good part of Brazil.
-That's what... -[Danny] Whoa.
-Oh, catfish? -[Diego] Catfish. Yeah.
[Larissa] Ah.
It's very nice to kind of just take a breath
and take in some,
you know, proper, untouched wilderness.
-[speaking Portuguese] -Okay.
[Danny] Oh, look.
-[speaking Portuguese] -[speaking Portuguese]
We basically drove half of the country,
but, yeah, totally worth it.
[Danny] Oh.
Oh, that's good.
[Parker] I'm looking forward to it.
There's nothing much more majestic than a big cat.
[dramatic music playing]
That is very fine gold.
Sounds like drums of war.
Look at that.
It's almost liquid.
Crazy, huh?
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] Let's go.
I love jaguars, so I'm looking forward to it.
[Danny] Here we go.
[narrator] En route to the hardrock gold mining mecca
of Pocone in Brazil,
Parker and the crew are in the wilds
of the Pantanal looking for jaguars.
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] You don't want it to be a sure thing
because they're wild animals, right?
And it's very wild.
We're very much in the middle of nowhere.
[narrator] Brazil is home to half the world's
entire population of jaguars,
but these expert hunters remain elusive
and shy away from human interaction.
[dramatic music playing]
-[Larissa in Portuguese] -[Juca speaking]
-[Larissa in Portuguese] -[Juca in Portuguese]
[Diego] I lost her.
I can't see her anymore.
[dramatic music playing]
There he is! There he is!
-[Diego] Jaguar. -Oh, yeah. Right there.
-[Larissa] Ah, yeah. -[Danny] Look at that.
[Parker] Oh, there it is.
[Danny] Here it comes. Here it comes.
Oh, my [bleep].
The muscles on it.
That is awesome.
I'm amazed at how just like chill it is too.
[narrator] Over 5,000 jaguars
are protected within the 6,500-square-mile
Pantanal region.
[Diego] It's coming this way.
[Danny] It's looking to hunt.
Oh, look. He's coming down to the water.
[narrator] This apex predator
has the strongest bite of any cat on the planet.
[Danny] He's totally hunting. It's seen something.
Can you see?
[jaguar growls]
She got a caiman.
[gasps] Oh, my [bleep].
[Parker] That's sick.
[Larissa] That's sick.
-That's sick. -[Parker] It's a big one.
-[Larissa gasps] -[Parker] Very big.
[Larissa] Wow.
Wow.
[Danny] Well, that's that fed for a while.
[Larissa] All right. Jaguar, check.
Caiman, check.
[Parker] We need an anaconda now.
-[Danny] Yeah. [chuckles] -Yeah. Anaconda. Yeah.
-I wanna see the anaconda. -I want an anaconda eating you.
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] To be here and see this,
it's just been awesome.
Yeah, I love big cats, so...
They're very cool.
And it's a nice little break from the gold mining
side of these trips, you know?
It's like... In a place like,
you know, Porto Velho and then Serra Pelada
where it's just like so much confusion
about what's legal and what's not legal.
Everybody has like a political angle on,
wants you to say that,
"Oh, the government is bad," or, "This should be legal,"
or whatever, and it's like...
You know, as far as like a well-rounded view of mining,
it's like...
don't be an illegal miner.
Like that might be complicated in some areas.
I understand that it's not that simple.
But like...
don't use mercury,
don't mine where you're not supposed to,
'cause that's how places like this get destroyed, right?
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] It's getting dark. We should move.
By far, the best day I've had on all the trips we've done.
Like proper, untouched South American jungle
is really amazing.
It was very cool.
This trip is kind of a turning point.
Like we've seen so much of illegal mining.
We are fed up of all illegal mining.
Being in nature now, it kind of sets up our minds
so we can move forward
with this trip in a different direction.
[Parker] Nice palate cleanser.
And onward we go.
[dramatic music playing]
[Danny] So where are we going now?
We are going to this big mining site here in Pocone.
[narrator] Parker and team head from the Pantanal
to the Holy Grail of hardrock mining, Pocone.
[Parker] Well, let's go check it out.
[Diego] That sounds good.
[narrator] Millions of years ago,
far beneath where the town of Pocone now stands,
a tectonic plate folded over itself,
creating massive cracks right under the surface,
allowing gold-rich magma
to seep in and harden into quartz veins.
Easily accessible from the surface,
the multibillion dollar deposit
currently feeds over 30 mines in the region.
By far, the largest is the Salinas gold mine.
We are gonna meet the owner there.
[Parker] Okay.
He is a famous person
in the gold mining industry around here.
-Oh, really? -[Larissa] Yeah.
Now, currently, he flew from Sweden
just to meet with us.
-From Sweden? -[Larissa] Mmm-hmm.
-[Danny] Wow. -[Parker] By all accounts,
the biggest kind of mine site in this area.
So it's a good place to start.
We should be close.
-I think so. -[Parker] It seems like.
Uh, yes.
See? Salinas Gold Mineracao.
[Diego speaking Portuguese]
-[in Portuguese] -[speaking Portuguese]
[Danny] This is mental.
[Diego] Yeah, this is the place.
[Danny] What the [bleep].
[Parker] With this much security,
there must be a lot of gold around here.
[dramatic music playing]
-[in Portuguese] -[man] Nei?
[narrator] Parker and his team
are in the legendary gold region of Pocone
visiting the Salinas mine
owned by 54-year-old Nei de Souza.
[Danny] I'm guessing that's him.
[Parker in Portuguese]
-[in Portuguese] -No.
[laughter]
[Parker] That's all the Portuguese I know.
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa] Shall we?
[narrator] The massive Salinas mine
spans 1,200 acres...
Holy [bleep].
[narrator] And employs over 600 people.
That's a big hole.
Man, this is the biggest mine operation I've ever seen.
[Parker] That's crazy.
[dramatic music playing]
How long have they been operating here?
[Nei in Portuguese]
-[Diego] Twenty years in this region. -[Parker] Oh, wow.
[Nei in Portuguese]
[narrator] At the age of 19,
Nei started selling mining equipment
in a store to provide for his young family.
His love of gold mining led him deep into the jungle
in the State of Para where he nearly died.
[in Portuguese]
[Danny] He got malaria 51 times.
[in Portuguese]
He got to weigh 55 kilograms.
[in Portuguese]
Wow.
[narrator] Nei's 1.2 million ounces,
today worth $2.4 billion,
slowly built his reputation as a heavyweight
in the Pocone gold industry.
And in 2015, he bought the Salinas mine.
[Parker] What are they doing over there?
[Larissa] He's saying these are the gold veins.
[Parker] Bottom of the pit, there's like a main vein.
And then you can see in the walls
all of the like...
You know, they're like rib bones.
And so they're just chasing all of those.
[narrator] Pocone's massive 55-mile-long vein
runs right through Nei's land.
Smaller six-feet-wide veins run off
like ribs extending from a spine.
Unlike many hardrock mines
where the gold ore must be blasted out,
Pocone sits on loose sedimentary rock
which is soft enough to be excavated using machines.
[man in Portuguese]
-It's the richest... -Oh, that's the highest grade?
-[Larissa] Yeah. The high grades. Yeah. -[man] Yeah. High grade.
[Nei in Portuguese]
[Parker] Oh, wow.
That's a lot.
[narrator] Nei's drill test
suggests that there is a total gold deposit here
worth $6 billion,
$2 billion of which has already been mined.
[Nei in Portuguese]
[Diego] 11,000 tons a day, they process.
Lot of rocks.
The issue with hard rock
is there's just a huge...
entry barrier from a financial standpoint.
It all depends on the deposit you've got, right?
But with a good deposit,
raising that kind of money is very doable.
Probably their cost are pretty low,
especially because they don't have to do any blasting, right?
-[in Portuguese] -[in Portuguese]
Yeah.
[in Portuguese]
-[Larissa] He's inviting us to see the plant. -Yeah.
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] One of the big things that he has going for him here
is hard rock mining
normally you spend a lot of money
with, um, drilling
and blasting rock.
And this rock is quite...
It's soft enough that you can
dig it freely with excavators
but it's hard enough that it...
The walls hold up and you can like open pit it.
So it's kind of like a perfect scenario
in that standpoint.
[narrator] Together with executive director Vitor Mora,
Nei has been working on a new system
to maximize the gold extracted from the hard rock.
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa] He says the biggest one
in terms of process capacity,
also the most modern one.
[Vitor in Portuguese]
That's the process with cyanide
because for one year and a half now,
they're not using any mercury anymore.
Got you.
[narrator] Cyanide is highly toxic to humans.
If ingested, it can lead to death.
But Nei's crew have an environmentally safe way
to use it and extract gold.
[Larissa] From here, they control the whole plant.
[narrator] In Nei's cyanide plant,
pay dirt is filtered through a series
of crushers and trommels
before reaching a vat of cyanide.
The reactive chemical quickly breaks down the rock
and dissolves the gold into a liquid,
then an electrified steel sponge
attracts and traps the gold like a magnet.
Does he know what, like, what this mill costs?
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa speaking Portuguese]
-[in Portuguese] -[Larissa] Uh-huh.
But the whole plant, $15 million.
Does he know what their recovery rate was
before when they were using mercury
and what it is now with this system?
[in Portuguese]
When they're using mercury,
it was around 90%
and now with cyanide,
-at least 98%. -[Parker] Wow.
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] It's a model that I would love to replicate someday
but it's cool being here. It's cool seeing it.
Looking forward to what else we can learn.
[narrator] After the cyanide process,
the gold is heated
to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
[Danny] Wow.
Look at that.
What's about to happen?
I think we're gonna see melted gold.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] The molten liquid is poured into a transfer cubicle
and then a mold.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Within seconds, the mold is tilted
and the bar is cooled in water,
leaving a 99.9% pure gold bar.
[Larissa] 2 kilos, 840 grams.
[Parker] He must do more than this every day, though.
Oh, he's saying that they do daily
5 to 6 kilos per day.
[narrator] Each 45 ounce bar
is worth around $90,000.
On average, Nei produces up to four bars a day
putting his daily production
at over $250,000,
around $90 million a year,
over six times more
than Parker's Yukon claim.
I would hate to guess what this place is worth.
[in Portuguese]
-[Larissa in Portuguese] -[in Portuguese]
$400 million.
That's actually about what I was thinking.
[in Portuguese]
And you're invited to...
[Nei in Portuguese]
[Larissa] You're invited to partner him.
[in Portuguese]
You bring the money.
-[Nei in Portuguese] -And we bring the experience.
He's the one... He's the one with the money.
[laughs]
I think if we wanna make something work here,
I have to spend a lot of money.
It would be good to kind of see
if there's people who have done it
on what I would reconsider
a more reasonable budget.
[Larissa] Ah. So he's saying that there are other mines
around this area and they know the guys
in Santa Rita operation, so maybe we could check.
[Danny] Parker's in love,
literally fallen for the hard rock industry.
It's just like, "Yeah. I want a bit of that in my life.
I want it. I want the power.
I want the size.
I want it all."
I think there is absolutely not a question
that Parker is gonna end up in Brazil.
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] Where is the, you know,
20,000, 30,000, 40,000 ounce a year
hard rock mines?
Like, those are the ones
that I'm curious about.
Uh, Nei gave us...
He gave us a number, a contact, a guy.
His name is Marcelo.
I'll just give him a call.
[Larissa in Portuguese]
[narrator] Following a visit to Nei de Souza's
$90 million a year hard rock mine in Pocone,
Parker's tracking down a new lead
on a smaller operation.
Here at Nei's, it's great to learn from.
It's great to see.
It's great talking to him about it.
But, you know, it's way bigger than I am.
I think there's some other smaller operations that are similar,
so we need to go check some of those out.
Yeah, oh, yeah, we are absolutely here. Yeah.
Oh. We heard about...
We heard about the Christ.
[Parker] Wow.
[narrator] The Santa Rita mine
was founded by Sergio De Franca,
who was so poor when he first came to Pocone
in the 1980s gold rush that he lived in a straw hut.
-[Danny] Amazing. -[Larissa] I think it's beautiful in here.
[narrator] Forty years later, the Santa Rita mine
named after the Saint of Impossible Causes
employs over 300 workers
and makes around $7.5 million a year.
[Parker] Large scale at hard rock, I would class as like
100,000 ounce plus.
You know, small scale, I would class as like
under 1,000 ounces.
Like, I've never been to a hard rock mine
that's in the middle of those two numbers.
So it sounds like this is the place for that.
[Danny] Look at that.
Could that be Maria?
[narrator] Sergio died suddenly
only three months ago,
leaving 35-year-old son-in-law,
Marcelo Giros in charge overnight.
-[Marcelo in Portuguese] -Hey.
[Marcelo in Portuguese]
[Larissa speaking in Portuguese]
[Marcelo in Portuguese]
-Hey, Parker. -Hi.
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa] He's inviting us to see the mining site.
[dramatic music playing]
Oh, wow.
-Oh, it's huge. -Look to your left.
[Parker] It feels like there's more opportunity here
at Marce... With Marcelo, you know, for me.
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa] Ah.
[Marcelo in Portuguese]
[narrator] Marcelo's mine hits another part
of the 55-mile long gold quartz vein
that runs beneath Pocone.
[Danny] What the hell is he doing?
Getting the end of the pipe soft
so he can put it on the... Connect the fittings.
-[Larissa] Oh! -[laughs]
You saw it, right?
[Danny] It is. It is.
[narrator] Once the water has been pumped clear,
the gold-rich rock is soft enough
to be excavated from the ground.
[Parker] I've never been around a hard rock mine
that didn't have to drill and blast.
Removing that makes, you know,
the grades that you can mine weigh lower
or your profit margin way higher.
And what's the usual grade like gram to ton?
[Marcelo in Portuguese]
[in Portuguese]
[narrator] With the mine processing upwards
of 2,000 tons every 24 hours,
Santa Rita can produce up to $42,000 a day.
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa] He's asking if you wanna operate the excavator.
Yeah, if you don't think I'll [bleep] it up.
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] Should I start over at that wall
or should I start down here?
-[Marcelo] Here. -[Parker] Okay.
[Marcelo] Okay?
The same way.
[Parker] Don't wanna [bleep] up their mine plant here.
[narrator] To get a feel for the operation,
Parker takes charge of the excavator,
digging the soft gold-rich rock for the trucks
to haul up to Marcelo's processing plant.
You know, I've always had a lot of respect for people
whose, like, start from nothing,
like this, where one guy's taking it the whole way.
Hard rock mining's definitely something
that I've been interested in for quite some time,
but it's very hard
to make that work in North America.
Small scale hard rock doesn't really exist.
There's probably not a mining operation
that's hard rock in North America
that got set up for less than $250 million.
And in the Yukon, you don't have the opportunity
like Marcelo has here.
It seems like Brazil would be a very good place
to try to do it.
[excavator beeping]
[Danny] How's he finding, like,
taking on the responsibility of the mine?
[in Portuguese]
[Parker] I hope I didn't screw anything up.
-Yeah. Okay. -Did it go okay?
-Okay. Perfect, man. -Okay.
Okay. [laughs]
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa] He's inviting us if you wanna go check
the plant where they process the material.
[in Portuguese]
-[Marcelo speaking Portuguese] -[Diego] Okay.
[Danny] Hey, how are you?
You're okay. Hi, love.
[narrator] Marcelo's wife Alice is Sergio's daughter.
Together, they want to continue Sergio's dream
and make the family business
something they can pass on to their children.
Oh, wow.
She's so cute.
[in Portuguese]
I see.
Looking for gold already.
Yes.
[laughs]
[Parker] Life is really short.
It kind of has the feel
that they're scrambling a little bit
to, kind of, maybe not keep it together,
but maybe, I don't really know.
When there's a single owner-operator of a business
and that person dies, there's always a lot
of institutional knowledge that gets lost.
You're okay. Hi.
And I'm sure that's caused a lot of...
issues.
When my grandpa was running sawmills,
the top three people in his company,
the plane they were in flew into the side of a mountain
and they all died,
his... All his management.
You know, it caused a lot of issues.
So I get that, um,
I get the struggles that they're dealing with.
[laughs]
You have to just get through it.
[dramatic music playing]
[Marcelo in Portuguese]
[narrator] Sergio built this unique system
to process his hard rock on site.
A series of hammer mills
break down the solid rock
before it enters the centrifuge.
Water and gravity work together
to discharge lighter rock
out of the sides of the rotating barrel,
leaving the heavier gold-laden material
to drop down to the bottom of the barrel.
This process reduces Marcelo's
daily 2,000 tons of dirt
to just two tons of gold bearing concentrate.
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa] This is very fine gold.
So the concentrated material goes into the box
and then from the box to the center of amalgamation.
[in Portuguese]
[Parker] It's been really interesting.
I haven't seen a lot of hard rock mines
that aren't owned by like Barrick or Goldcorp
or, you know, massive companies, right?
So that's been... This kind of stuff
is really interesting.
[Danny] How's this place making you feel
in your loins, Parker?
[Parker] I mean, I'd throw some money
at a project with that dude.
[in Portuguese]
[speaking Portuguese]
-[in Portuguese] -[speaking Portuguese]
[in Portuguese]
[Danny] Oh, what's that?
[narrator] Instead of running the hard rock concentrate
through a cyanide plant,
Marcelo is using a gold table
designed for placer mining.
[Parker] That makes no [bleep] sense to me at all.
It'll be very difficult
for that to be like a system that works.
I think they'll struggle.
All right. Let's get in there.
[narrator] Danny and Larissa
have come to the church of Santa Rita
to meet with Sergio's widow, Mara,
and her daughter, Alice.
[Danny] Wow. It's a beautiful church.
[narrator] Built by Sergio,
a blessing from Santa Rita in this church
serves as goodwill and protection
while visiting the mine site.
[in Portuguese]
-To here. -Yeah.
[all in Portuguese]
That's the first time we've been blessed
to go to visit a mine site.
I'm not a religious person,
but I find churches very relaxing and calming.
Amen.
[suspenseful music playing]
Sounds like drums of war.
[narrator] At the Santa Rita mine in Pocone,
Parker has found a major flaw in the operation.
They're finicky tables that
are really designed for placer.
You know, I don't know how...
I've never seen one operated at a hard rock mine
with crushed material like that.
I don't like that.
And so the feed rate's too high right now.
They really... They really want
a slow, consistent feed rate.
[narrator] Marcelo's brought in a gold table
more commonly used for placer mining.
[in Portuguese]
[Parker] That's the gold.
[Larissa] Ah, you see,
there's a lot of small rocks in here.
That's what you were saying, right?
-I mean, these rocks all... -[Parker] Yeah.
-Like if there's a piece of gold in there, -there's a scratch in here.
-you're not getting it. -[Larissa] Yeah.
[Parker] Even at our operation,
we've moved away from the table
because they're slow
and they're, kind of, annoying.
They're temperamental.
[narrator] Gold tables work by using gravity and water.
Lighter dirt is pushed to the edges
of the slanted table
and out into the waste
while the heavier gold
collects in grooves in the center.
But microscopic gold found in hard rock
can weigh a similar amount
to the waste rock.
Meaning Marcelo may be
washing gold down the drain.
All right.
See what's in here.
[narrator] Parker checks the runoff from the table
to see how much gold is going to waste.
-[Parker] We'll just pan in there... -[Marcelo] Yeah.
-[Parker] if that's all right with you? -[Marcelo] Yeah.
[speaking Portuguese]
[Parker] Oh, this is gonna be so difficult to pan,
and that is so fine.
[Danny] Yeah.
[narrator] The gold is not heavy enough
to settle on the bottom of the pan.
[Danny] Look at that.
It's almost liquid.
Jeez.
[Parker] Yeah, at this point, it's just like impossible to pan
and it wants to float.
[in Portuguese]
[Parker] Crazy, huh?
How many operations like this size are around?
[Marcelo] Twenty-five.
[Parker] If there's a bunch of them in the area
for them to like pool together
and be able to make
a centralized system using cyanide.
Because, you know,
having the system is one thing,
having the experts to run it is another.
And a pooled resources, I think,
on that front would go pretty far.
If you can get 10 people onboard, then, you know,
half a million dollars apiece, right?
And I would think it would pay itself off quite quickly.
[narrator] Parker's suggestion is for Marcelo
to partner with other smaller mines in the area
and build a cyanide plant themselves.
[Danny] Those tables are not cheap
and at some point you may as well just turn around
and say, "Look, why don't we just go
for a cyanide laboratory?"
[Larissa in Portuguese]
[in Portuguese]
[Larissa speaking Portuguese]
I wish I could have been more help.
[in Portuguese]
See, that is the shortcut
that Parker is suggesting.
He's just saying, "Forget all this.
Don't have any of this.
Set up a cyanide laboratory system,
which is much better for the environment
than Mercury,"
and there's your answer.
[Parker] Like, honestly, you could come here
and for a, you know, probably a $4 or $5 million investment,
build a centralized really good solid cyanide plant,
but if I'm spending that kind of money,
then I'm gonna put all of my money into it, right?
And, um,
I don't want to play that game.
Um, it's too much of an investment.
Thank you.
Thank you, Parker.
I... You know, honestly, I am really glad
that we came here and saw this owner-operators
that built big mine sites up from scratch.
It's definitely something that I'm gonna think about a lot
and research a lot,
and maybe someday do.
[laughs]
I've always been, kind of, interested in hard rock stuff,
but I know that there's a ton of placer mining,
like, land-based, normal placer mining
in this country that we haven't seen.
There is this place, Peixoto.
-[Parker] Yeah. -Peixoto de Azevedo.
Like Pocone, Peixoto is like a very famous area
in Mato Grosso, you know?
But it's just a different setup.
It's... Here is more hard rock.
-There is more placer gold. -[Parker] Right.
I think it would be good to see some of that.
That is my kind of meeting.
Beer and decisions made.
-Yup. -Cheers, everyone.
Cheers.
Here's to the next location.
[Parker speaking Portuguese]
-[Larissa speaking Portuguese] -[Parker] Yeah.
[narrator] Next time on Parker's Trail.
[Larissa] He says they produce more or less
four tons of gold per year.
They produce more placer gold
than the entire Yukon.
[Danny laughs] My God.
[Parker] Look at the size of that thing.
There is a pretty big indigenous community here.
[in Portuguese]
[Parker] What was the grade like in this?
[Larissa] Over five grams per square meter.
That's really good.
We're always looking for ground.
This area is really intriguing to me.