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National-Scale Geophysical, Geologic, and Mineral Resource Data and Grids for the United States, Canada, and Australia: Data in Support of the Tri-National Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative (ver 1.1, March 2025)

Metadata Updated: October 30, 2025

National-scale geologic, geophysical, and mineral resource raster and vector data covering the United States, Canada, and Australia are provided in this data release. The data were compiled as part of the tri-national Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative (CMMI). The CMMI, established in 2019, is an international science collaboration between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Geoscience Australia (GA), and the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC). One aspect of the CMMI is to use national- to global-scale earth science data to map where critical mineral prospectivity may exist using advanced machine learning approaches (Kelley, 2020). The geoscience information presented in this report include the training and evidential layers that cover all three countries and underpin the resultant prospectivity models for basin-hosted Pb-Zn mineralization described in Lawley and others (2021). It is expected that these data layers will be useful to many regional- to continental-scale studies related to a wide range of earth science research. Therefore, the data layers are organized using widely accepted GIS formats in the same map projection to increase efficiency and effectiveness of future studies. All datasets have a common geographic projection in decimal degrees using a WGS84 datum. Data for the various training and evidential layers were either derived for this study or were extracted from previous national to global-scale compilations. Data from outside work are provided here as a courtesy for completeness of the model and should be cited as the original source. Original references are provided on each child page. Where possible, data for the United States were merged to data for Canada to provide composite data that allow for continuity and seamless analyses of the earth science data across the two countries. Earth science data provided in this report include training data for the models. Training data include a mineral resource database of Pb-Zn deposits and occurrences related to either carbonate-hosted (Mississippi Valley type-MVT) or clastic-dominated (aka sedex) Pb-Zn mineralization. Evidential layers that were used as input to the models include GeoTIFF grid files consisting of ground, airborne, and satellite geophysical data (magnetic, gravity, tomography, seismic) and several related derivative products. Geologic layers incorporated into the models include shapefiles of modified lithology and faults for the United States, Canada and Australia. A global database of ancient and modern passive margins is provided here as well as a link to a database mapping the global distribution of black shale units from a previous USGS study. GeoTIFF grids of the final prospectivity models for MVT and for clastic-dominated Pb-Zn mineralization across the US, Canada, and Australia from Lawley and others (2021) are also included. Each child page describes the particular data layer and related derivative products if applicable. Kelley, K.D., 2020, International geoscience collaboration to support critical mineral discovery: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2020–3035, 2 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20203035. Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E., Graham, G.E., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Czarnota, K., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., Hayward, N., Barlow, M., Emsbo, P., Coyan, J., San Juan, C.A., and Gadd, M.G., 2022, Data-driven prospectivity modelling of sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems and their critical raw materials: Ore Geology Reviews, v. 141, no. 104635, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104635.

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.

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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-6193e9f3d34eb622f68f13a5
Data Last Modified 2025-03-31T00:00:00Z
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 85b0ca61-1b5a-470e-8639-50e36387d61a
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -166.8850, -85.6248, 146.9818, 83.7135
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 4942cfde5987805b8fba006d99442c5a5190b2fd3357dc014be068dc595333eb
Source Schema Version 1.1
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