The paper presents the results of a broad monitoring program carried out during the beginning of the filling process of Lake Aguas Claras, Brazil. This lake was created after the exhaustion of an iron ore mining activity. In its final conformation the lake will have a surface area of 0,7 km² and the maximum depth of 234 m, which will make it the deepest lake in the country. The results of a two years monitoring program show the prevalence of good water quality (well oxygenated, low degree of mineralization, absence of organic and mineral contamination), but also a quite interesting shift in the dominance of phytoplanktonic groups, indicating the high instability of lakes that are undergoing a process of formation.
Mining lakes; water quality; monitoring
