Airborne Magnetic and Radiometric Survey over a part of the eastern Great Basin, Nevada, 2024-2025

This data release provides vector flight-line (point) and raster data for a high-resolution airborne magnetic and radiometric survey over a part of the eastern Great Basin, Nevada. The survey was acquired as part of the UGSS Earth Mapping Resource Initiative (Earth MRI) to improve our understanding of the fundamental geologic framework of the region with applications to evaluating natural resources and geologic hazards. The survey traverses a region in east central Nevada that is part of the eastern Great Basin and includes the towns of Ely and Eureka. The survey area hosts multiple known and potential mineralizing systems including Carlin type deposits, porphyry deposits (copper, molybdenum, silver), intrusion related gold deposits, rare metal granites, and lacustrine evaporites that contain critical minerals. Data for this survey were acquired and processed by New Resolution Geophysics (NRG) under contract to Woolpert Inc. and the USGS. The survey was flown from August 2024 to May 2025 by helicopter to best acquire data over areas with mountainous topography. Pre-planned flight lines were flown in an E-W direction with 200-m line spacing; N-S tie-lines were flown with 2000-m line spacing. The nominal flight height of 100 meters (m) above ground, with areas having higher population densities flown at a nominal height of 330 m above ground for safety reasons. A total of approximately 126,000 linear kilometers of data were collected covering an area that is 170-km E-W and 220 km N-S at its widest dimensions. Areas excluded from data collection are tribal lands and wilderness areas. Following acquisition, NRG also performed extensive post-processing of the data and delivered the final databases, grids, and images. Details regarding the flights and data processing are described in the contractor report provided in this release