Geologic Models

The project seeks to better understand the mineral systems of the Boulder batholith and surrounding region in Montana using new airborne geophysical data in conjunction with geologic mapping.

Our objective is to develop a national-scale, geospatial database that is the authoritative source of the most important mines, mineral deposits, and mineral districts of the United States.

The Silverton caldera complex in southwest Colorado hosts base and precious metals that have been mined since the late 1800s. Extensive mine workings, excellent bedrock exposures, and deeply incised drainages make this area a natural laboratory ideally suited for furthering our understanding of the mineral systems in a volcanic environment. In addition, state-of-the-art geophysical data processing...

The Midcontinent Rift system and surrounding Precambrian rocks are known to host highly significant mineral resources. Our project objectives are to increase understanding of this system through the integration of new and legacy geophysical data with geochemical and borehole data, map the lithology and structure of PreCambrian rocks, and develop an integrated 3D geologic model of the region.

The objective of this project is to use high-resolution state-of-the-art airborne and regional ground geophysical methods to map an underexplored region of the southern Midcontinent that is important to economic and critical mineral deposits.

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...

This project is focused on the sediment-hosted copper deposits of the Midcontinent Rift, with three main objectives: 1) describe the ore mineralogy and geochemistry of the White Pine and Copperwood deposits, 2) evaluate whether hydrothermal alteration in footwall rocks can be used as a vector towards ore, and 3) provide a careful scoping study to evaluate whether unconventional platinum-group...

The USGS is using a set of advanced imaging and analysis tools to study the rocks within the eastern Adirondacks of upstate New York. The goal of these studies is to gain a better understanding of the geology and mineral resources in the area.

The Yukon-Tanana upland in eastern interior Alaska is a geologically complex block containing deposits of base-metal, platinum-group-element, and gold-silver-copper mineralization. It also hosts numerous mineral systems that are known or suspected to contain critical minerals.

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...