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Record quality tables for the Mineral Resources Data System

Metadata Updated: January 20, 2026

The tables in this data release provide measures of quality for each of 304,643 records in the Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) database, located at https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ describing mineral resources worldwide but focusing on those located in the United States. One table provides the measures of quality, the other provides the overall record scores that may be used to sort records by overall quality. MRDS is distributed from USGS in several different formats for the convenience of a variety of different users. For example a flattened version of the database is available in which the one-to-many relationships in MRDS are suppressed by combining them into a single field, resulting in a subset of the data that can be viewed, albeit confusingly, in a spreadsheet. The underlying database is relational with about 35 linked tables. That was the source used in this analysis. The measures of quality were obtained from an analysis of the fully relational form of MRDS, in which each record of MRDS is represented by many rows of a variety of tables in the database. The tables of the fully relational form of MRDS are described in detail at https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/full/about.php. MRDS records describe individual mineral resources. This analysis is intended to separate records that describe those resources well and are trustworthy from those that lack fundamental information or cannot be verified easily. The results of the analysis assign to each MRDS record a grade from A to E, where A records are judged the most informative and reliable and E records the least informative and reliable. Code used to carry out the analysis is included to help users understand the procedure used.

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 January 12, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 20, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 12, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 20, 2026
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_5d712a5ae4b0c4f70cfd4e54
Data Last Modified 2020-08-19T00:00:00Z
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
Datagov Dedupe Retained 20260120143730
Harvest Object Id 232d17f5-ec20-403f-94a9-f5ac94d1f185
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
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Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 232c48a228d0fb7d8be73e4a7e1f69713492c04f1e72c1015aefc2a8d4e1ac04
Source Schema Version 1.1
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