USMIN Mineral-Resource Data for the U.S. Geological Survey Sagebrush Mineral-Resource Assessment Project

The point and polygon layers within this geodatabase represent locations of mineral occurrences, mines, mining and mineral districts and sites of active mineral exploration within or near the Department of the Interior (DOI) Sagebrush Focal Areas in Montana, Wyoming and Utah, central Idaho, and the Oregon-Nevada-Idaho border area. The data were compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Deposit Database project (USMIN) to provide mineral resource information for use in the USGS Sagebrush Mineral Resource Assessment (SaMiRA). This assessment was conducted for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and evaluated the mineral resource potential of approximately 10 million acres of Federal lands identified as areas of high-quality sagebrush habitat. The spatial extent of the USMIN mineral resource data includes BLM lands proposed for withdrawal from mineral entry as well as a 25 km buffer beyond the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) townships containing these areas. This extent allowed for a thorough examination of the data and assured that any significant mineral occurrence, mine, or exploration area within or adjacent to BLM’s proposed withdrawal areas was considered in the mineral resource assessment. The mineral resource data were compiled as GIS layers including: 1) mine symbols shown on USGS topographic maps; 2) mine sites; 3) active mineral exploration sites; 4) mineral occurrences; 5) mining and mineral districts; and 6) production and resource data for mines and mineral deposits. A full discussion of the compilation methodology and sources used to develop the mineral resource data is available in the section 'USMIN Project Mineral-Resource Data for the USGS SaMiRA Project' in the accompanying report: Day, W.C., Hammarstrom, J.M., Zientek, M.L., and Frost, T.P., eds., 2016, Overview with methods and procedures of the U.S. Geological Survey mineral-resource assessment of the Sagebrush Focal Areas of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5089-A, 211 p., http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/sir20165089A.