ABSTRACT
From 1998 to 1999, UNICAMP developed a pilot-project in partnership with the Minas Gerais Environmental Agency (FEAM), with Dr. Jörg Matschullat, then Institute of Environmental Geochemistry, University of Heidelberg, and with the Baden-Württemberg State Health Agency in Stuttgart, Germany. The target area included Nova Lima, Santa Bárbara and Mariana (Figure 8.1), the latter representing the oldest industrial gold mining area in Brazil. Santa Bárbara district was first considered as a reference area for the project (baseline), as the local gold mining was supposedly less intense and more recent. This turned out to be an incorrect assumption (c 6).
