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Airborne Geophysical Survey Inventory of the Conterminous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico (ver. 4.0, April 2023)

Metadata Updated: October 1, 2025

This data release is a compilation of the locations of airborne geophysical surveys in the United States. The inventory documents public airborne geophysical surveys primarily flown by or contracted by the USGS from 1943 to present. In addition, surveys from the State of Alaska, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys (DGGS): Airborne GeophysWeb, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Energy and other state agencies have also been included. The surveys have contributed to studies under USGS programs including Water, Geologic Mapping, Minerals, Energy, Environmental Health, Ecosystems, Hazards, and Climate. This dataset contains locations for known and inventoried surveys, shows the footprints of the survey area, and summarizes data type (aeromagnetic (M), electromagnetic (EM), radiometric (R), gravity (G), and very low frequency EM (V)) and survey details. This dataset continues inventory and documentation efforts including digitized and digital geophysical surveys of state and national compilations (Connard and others, 1999; USGS, 2002; Chandler, 2007; USGS, 1999; Hill and others, 2009; USGS, 2018; DGGS, 2019; Johnson and others, 2019) in addition to many individual published surveys (Open-File Reports (OFR), Geophysical Investigations (GP), and data releases to ScienceBase; a trusted digital repository (USGS, 2019). Access to the survey data itself is also provided where available as the inventory catalogs completed and contracted surveys including those that have not been published to date. In support of the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI) (Day, 2019) suitability rankings of airborne geophysical surveys for supporting geologic studies were evaluated and determined for aeromagnetic and aeroradiometric data by Eric Anderson, Ben Drenth, V. J. S. Grauch, Anne McCafferty, Anji Shah, and Dan Scheirer of the USGS. The aeromagnetic suitability rankings documented by Drenth and Grauch (2019) were applied to the geophysical survey inventory based on data type, survey specifications, and data issues with 1 being the best and 5 being the least suitable. The criteria used to rank the surveys are explained in Table 1 (Drenth and Grauch, 2019) and described in detail in the process step of this metadata. In addition aeroradiometric rankings were also derived by Anjana K. Shah and have been incorporated.

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 September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 1, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 1, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5d38aac0e4b01d82ce8b940a
Data Last Modified 2023-04-26T00:00:00Z
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://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-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 67c1ec94-456b-4c09-a009-1e032e19f0d2
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -169.1069, 17.9614, -65.3710, 71.9996
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 8ed475e2c5b34c1b3905ba34179763c0e6b1e947145d25bc3ed44c5332497be0
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -169.1069, 17.9614, -169.1069, 71.9996, -65.3710, 71.9996, -65.3710, 17.9614, -169.1069, 17.9614}

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