DENVER, Colo. — Thanks to investments from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the U.S. Geological Survey today released a web mapping application, a data catalog and an informational report to aid resource managers in mine lands assessment and restoration.

Mine lands, both active and abandoned, exist throughout the United States. These lands can pose environmental hazards and safety risks to humans and wildlife, but there is a lack of information on the whereabouts of mining activities and their potential environmental effects. 

As worldwide demand for critical minerals rises, so does mining activity and mine land abundance. Managers of these mine lands need more reliable information to make science-based decisions about how to restore and reclaim these landscapes.

The three new products help address this information gap by providing a suite of complementary tools and information that make it easier to assess and track mining activity, monitor mine land conditions and plan restoration and reclamation projects. 

• Mine lands web mapping tool: This interactive, customizable web map allows users to visualize geospatial data to support the assessment and management of mine lands. Within the mapping tool, users can overlay mine lands and mine-related features with a variety of other landscape characteristics, such as geology or fire history. Users can also generate custom data summaries for user-defined areas of interest. In its initial version, the application gives users a quick summary of summary of mine features. Additional data and capabilities will be added to the tool in future releases.

   

• Mine lands data catalog: This web portal provides a central catalog of geospatial data resources related to mines and minerals, population demographics, geology and soils, habitats, land management status and topography. Users can filter datasets by keywords, geographic extent and other characteristics, as well as locate relevant documentation and data linkages. The catalog makes it easier for managers to locate mine-related data, providing centralized access and useful filtering tools to identify data resources most aligned with a user's needs.

• Synthesis report on the use of remote sensing to monitor mine lands:  Remote sensing primarily uses satellite or aircraft-based imagery to generate large-scale information about the earth. In this report, researchers describe how remote sensing can be used to assess and monitor mine lands, illustrating remote-sensing approaches using a set of case studies.

These products were supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through the Department's in Ecosystem Restoration and Resilience program. Together, they provide robust and timely information to help managers and the public assess, monitor and manage mine lands. 

For more information, visit each of the linked pages above or contact Daniel Jones (dkjones@usgs.gov).

# # #

The USGS provides science for a changing world. Learn more at www.usgs.gov or follow us on Facebook @USGeologicalSurvey, YouTube @USGS, Instagram @USGS, or X (formerly Twitter) at @USGS.