Mineral Commodities

The USMIN Mineral Deposit Database Project develops national-scale geospatial databases that provide authoritative information on the most significant mines, mineral deposits, and mining districts in the United States. These resources advance the understanding of domestic mineral resources and are available through the output of digital data products, journal articles, presentations, and other...

The National Minerals Information Center publishes statistics and information on the worldwide supply of, demand for, and flow of minerals and materials essential to the U.S. economy, the national security, and protection of the environment. The annual Mineral Commodity Summaries Report contains contains estimates covering nonfuel mineral industry data for over 90 individual minerals and materials...

The USGS National Minerals Information Center canvasses domestic and international mineral industries on production and production values. International Minerals Statistics and Information are compiled and presented in the Minerals Yearbook Volume III - Area Reports: International. These annual reviews are designed to provide timely statistical data on mineral commodities in various countries.

The USGS National Minerals Information Center canvasses domestic and international mineral industries on production and production values. State Minerals Statistics and Information are compiled and presented in the Mineral Commodity Summaries and the mineral commodity chapters in Volume 1 of the Minerals Yearbook. State chapters are in the Minerals Yearbook Volume II - Area Reports: Domestic...

Critical minerals are essential to the Nation’s economy and security. Demand for critical minerals is increasing, and it is essential to balance the societal need for these minerals with efforts to understand the effects of mining on other natural resources and to develop techniques to minimize these effects. The USGS Minerals Resources Life Cycle Integrated Science Team (IST) focuses on the life...

Mineral supply chains are complex, constantly changing, and global in scale. Decision-makers rely on our mineral supply chain science to make sense of these complicated systems and make strategic policy, trade and land-use decisions.

This project supports the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (EarthMRI) by developing a mineral systems approach for defining focus areas. This project is investigating domestic sources of critical minerals in three sequential stages: inventory, research, and assessment. 1) Inventory the abundance of critical minerals in ore, minerals, and processed materials from major deposits in each system...

We support the geospatial component of Mineral Resources Program research and provide public access to research results and geospatial information. We facilitate all aspects of the data life cycle, including the publication and archiving of geospatial information and products. We also develop and steward national-scale data layers considered foundational to the Mineral Resources Program as well as...

Alaska is dominated by a history of tectonic events that foster mobilization and concentration of a wide variety of mineral commodities that are critical to the US economy and are vital to national defense, renewable-energy, and emerging electronics technologies.

The rare earth elements (REEs) are a group of metals with unique physical and chemical properties that are critical to a variety of technological applications. For example, neodymium (Nd) is a REE used to manufacture high strength, lightweight magnets that power electric motors at all scales, from cell phones to airplanes. Reliance on REE imports puts the U.S. at high risk for supply disruption...

Our project will characterize the primary critical minerals (minerals that contain critical elements in their base structure) that are not yet in the USGS Spectral Library. We propose to increase understanding of the spectral indicators of critical minerals using lab-based studies of hand specimens and drill core, hyperspectral field scanning, and hyperspectral images collected from aircraft.

The primary goal of this project is to ensure the availability of state-of-the-art mineralogical analyses and, when needed, development of new analytical methods that can be applied to topical studies in Energy and Minerals Mission Area, as well as the other mission areas. The project includes mineralogy by X-ray diffraction (XRD), qualitative and semi-quantitative x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy...