Large deposits of bauxite, the principal ore of aluminum, occur at several places in Brazil. The largest deposits now undergoing extensive exploration and development are in the eastern Amazon Basin. Most of these deposits are in the State of Para, but some are in Amazonas and Maranhao.
Discovery of large-scale resources of bauxite in the Amazon Region is so recent that mining has not begun, but government geologists estimate the total resources in aluminum deposits in the lower Amazon to be in the multibillion ton range.
The annual production rate of bauxite ore in Brazil, much of it from Pops de Caldas in Minas Gerais, is about 760,000 metric tons of ore from which about 100,000 tons of aluminum metal is produced, most of which is consumed by Brazilian industry.
The Amazon bauxite deposits are on terraces formed on sedimentary rocks of Tertiary age; in Minas Gerais the deposits are formed on Precambrian metasedimentary rock, and at Poos de Caldas on a circular alkalic pluton of Cretaceous age.
