Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Indium deposits in the United States

Metadata Updated: October 28, 2023

This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data release provides the descriptions of the only U.S. sites-including mining districts, mineral occurrences, and mine features-that have reported production and (or) resources of indium (In). This dataset contains the Bingham and West Desert deposits in Utah, and the Chino site in New Mexico. Indium is considered a critical and strategic mineral because of its use in the aerospace, defense, energy, and telecommunications sectors. The primary applications are flat-panel displays, and specialty alloys (Fortier and others, 2018). In 2021, the U.S. was 100 percent net import reliant on indium from China, Canada, Republic of Korea, and France (U.S. Geological Survey, 2022). Indium is most commonly recovered from sphalerite, a zinc-sulfide mineral, wherein the indium occurs in quantities of less than 1 part per million (ppm) to 100 ppm (U.S. Geological Survey, 2022). In the U.S., indium is found in porphyry and skarn deposits. The West Desert deposit in Utah is the only deposit in the U.S. with a modern National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) compliant resource estimate of indium (Dyer and others, 2014). The entries and descriptions in the database were derived from published papers, reports, data, and internet documents representing a variety of sources, including geologic and exploration studies described in State, Federal, and industry reports. Resources extracted from older sources might not be compliant with current rules and guidelines in minerals industry standards such as NI 43-101. The presence of an indium mineral deposit in this database is not meant to imply that the deposit is currently economic. Rather, these deposits were included to capture the characteristics of the largest indium deposits in the United States. Inclusion of material in the database is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. The authors welcome additional published information in order to continually update and refine this dataset. Dyer, T.L., Tietz, P.G., and Austin, J.B., 2014, Technical report on the West Desert zinc-copper-indium-magnetite project, preliminary economic assessment, Juab County, Utah, prepared for InZinc Mining Ltd. [Filing date March 17, 2014]: Mine Development Associates, 188 p., accessed March 10, 2020, at http://www.sedar.com. Fortier, S.M., Nassar, N.T., Lederer, G.W., Brainard, J., Gambogi, J., and McCullough, E.A., 2018, Draft critical mineral list-Summary of methodology and background information-U.S. Geological Survey technical input document in response to Secretarial Order No. 3359: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2018-1021, 15 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20181021. U.S. Geological Survey, 2022, Mineral commodity summaries 2022: U.S. Geological Survey, 202 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/mcs2022.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date October 28, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date October 28, 2023
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/dedb9cfd8c3bfb960678238b4f7935a3
Identifier USGS:62a0edd1d34ec53d27701b99
Data Last Modified 20220912
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 0f74688c-ba09-41ea-8a9c-b5c82c814006
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -113.491677,32.762439,-108.02729,40.611862
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 4ea11e6c9b816f9a65253039d30a96938da0e636fdb1be8c11e1cf2d3a10ed72
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -113.491677, 32.762439, -113.491677, 40.611862, -108.02729, 40.611862, -108.02729, 32.762439, -113.491677, 32.762439}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.