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Indium deposits in the United States

Metadata Updated: October 30, 2025

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 September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-62a0edd1d34ec53d27701b99
Data Last Modified 2022-09-12T00:00:00Z
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 e6e9c647-338f-4f50-b9ef-d6020cceab96
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -113.491677, 32.762439, -108.027290, 40.611862
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 32b801568d880d6f8413be934e7d08e1181faccb38f1baa917e85bd8d24bc467
Source Schema Version 1.1
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