Mineral Resource Formation

The USGS Spectral Library contains reflectance spectra, including samples of minerals, rocks, soils, physically constructed as well as mathematically computed mixtures, plants, vegetation communities, microorganisms, and man-made materials. The samples and spectra collected were assembled for the purpose of using spectral features for the remote detection of these and similar materials. The latest...

We are assessing the extent of industrial mineral resources hosted by heavy-mineral sands in the coastal plain of the southeastern United States. “Heavy-mineral sands" (HMS) is a term commonly used in industry and geologic literature to describe layered sediments deposited in coastal environments that contain dense (“heavy") minerals of economic value. The heavy minerals extracted from these...

USGS Mineral Deposit Models are "an organized arrangement of information describing the essential characteristics or properties of a class of mineral deposits. Models themselves can be classified according to their essential attributes (for example: descriptive, grade-tonnage models, genetic, geoenvironmental, geophysical, probability of occurrence, and quantitative process models)." (Stoeser and...