Images

Photograph of Ray Copper Mine, Arizona, taken by USGS Emeritus Mark Coker, September 1, 2007. Revised for USGS Webpage carousel for brightness, sharpness, contrast, color saturation, and cropping.

Pie chart showing copper production in leading copper producing U.S. states in 2020 by Eric Anderson of the Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Science Center, August 2024

Graph showing electricity generated by hydropower, wind, solar, bioenergy, and geothermal renewable energy sources in the U.S. from 2000-2020

Table of annual water use in acre-feet per year by major copper mines in Arizona from 2004-2008 published by Singh (2010)

Infographic about critical mineral commodities use in renewable energy, published online by the USGS Office of Communications and Publishing in June 2019.

Schematic diagram of water flow through a conventional copper-ore flotation plant and unlined tailings storage facility illustrating water losses (in italics), reclamation of process water, and addition of makeup water.

Map showing locations of copper producing mines in the Lower Colorado River Basin, produced by Eric Anderson of the Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Science Center on August 19, 2024.

This infographic shows some of the natural resources that the USGS Energy Resources Program studies, including oil and gas, geothermal, geologic hydrogen gas, carbon dioxide, wind, solar, coal, gas hydrates, uranium and water resources. 

This map shows, in green, areas that are part of Mineral Systems identified by the USGS. These mineral systems are used to create focus areas for mapping through the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI). 

This image shows a 3d visualization of geophysical data collected over the Idaho Cobalt Belt by the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI). 

World map of expected annual disruption of copper refinery production, in metric tons, from potential seismic activity.

This image depicts the magnetic anomaly map of the region covered by the Southwest New Mexico aeromagnetic/aeroradiometric survey. These data allow us to model the subsurface structure and composition of the upper crust.

Infographic on USGS critical mineral supply chain analysis. 

Minerals are essential to power homes and businesses and to manufacture products and technologies, from phones to vehicles. 

Map of areas with potential for key critical minerals in microchips. 

Map of areas with potential for key critical minerals in high capacity batteries. 

USGS National Innovation Center UAS Research Center Saucer Shark Project, before science flight tests, Aeroshell and payload. Sling configuration and payload orientation verified before science flight deployment. Payload is on and ready to record!

USGS National Innovation Center UAS Research Center Saucer Shark Project, BisonCore displays the path of the sensor live, as it covers transects. Data received from the payload is then displayed within the BisonCore Ecosystem and is accessible for field viewing. The magnetic map is also used to validate payload directed algorithms.

USGS scientist J. Poletti examines a carbonatite dike in the wall of the Mountain Pass mine pit.

Fault mapping: George Pharris, an EDMAP student from New Mexico Tech, is digging a soil pit to date a surface offset of the Quaternary-active Alamogordo fault, in central New Mexico. 

A USGS hat sits on a bed of black bear berry vegetation. This photo was taken in Kanuti, Alaska. 

A professor and EDMAP student confer about Quaternary surface mapping along the Alamogordo fault in central New Mexico. 

From a 2023 EDMAP project at NM Tech mapping Quaternary slip rate along the Alamogordo fault (New Mexico) using both remote sensing and field-based methods