BGS Mineral Resources of Great Britain
This dataset provides digital spatial information on the location of mineral resources across the onshore area of the United Kingdom at a scale of 1:50 000. The term ‘mineral resources’ has a definition under international standards that includes both an economic and geological dimension. These data are based primarily on mapped geology with limited assessment of economics. Therefore, the term ‘mineral resources’ is used here in a broad sense. The dataset allows users to visualise the extent and distribution of mineral resources across the UK and to relate them to other forms of land-use (such as urban areas or designated environmentally sensitive areas) or to other factors (such as transport infrastructure and conservation information). The UK dataset has been created by integrating mineral resource datasets originally produced for England, Scotland and Wales through a series of commissioned and grant-funded projects led by the British Geological Survey (BGS) between 1994 and 2010. These national datasets were developed separately, using a consistent geological evidence base and interpretation approach, and have subsequently been harmonised and merged to support UK-wide online spatial delivery. The BGS Mineral Resource data does not determine mineral reserves and therefore does not denote potential areas of extraction. Only onshore, mainland mineral resources are included in the dataset. This dataset has been produced by the collation and interpretation of mineral resource data principally held by the British Geological Survey. The mineral resource data presented are based on the best available information but are not comprehensive and their quality is variable. The dataset should only be used to show a broad distribution of those mineral resources which may be of current or potential economic interest.
Simple
- Date (Creation)
- 1994
Distributor
British Geological Survey
-
Enquiries
0115 936 3276
Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth
,
NOTTINGHAM
,
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
,
NG12 5GG
,
United Kingdom
0115 936 3143
0115 936 3276
Point of contact
British Geological Survey
-
Enquiries
0115 936 3276
Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth
,
NOTTINGHAM
,
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
,
NG12 5GG
,
United Kingdom
0115 936 3143
0115 936 3276
- Maintenance and update frequency
- asNeeded As needed
- GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
- BGS Thesaurus of Geosciences
-
- Digital data
- Minerals
- Economic geology
- dataCentre
- Keywords
-
- NERC_DDC
- Access constraints
- otherRestrictions Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- license
- Use constraints
- otherRestrictions Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- The copyright of materials derived from the British Geological Survey's work is vested in the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC]. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a retrieval system of any nature, without the prior permission of the copyright holder, via the BGS Intellectual Property Rights Manager. Use by customers of information provided by the BGS, is at the customer's own risk. In view of the disparate sources of information at BGS's disposal, including such material donated to BGS, that BGS accepts in good faith as being accurate, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the quality or accuracy of the information supplied, or to the information's suitability for any use. NERC/BGS accepts no liability whatever in respect of loss, damage, injury or other occurence however caused.
- Other constraints
- The dataset is made available to external clients under BGS Digital Data Licence terms and conditions. Revert to the IPR Section (iprdigital@bgs.ac.uk ) if further advice is required with regard to permitted usage.
- Spatial representation type
- vector Vector
- Metadata language
- EnglishEnglish
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
- Geographic identifier
-
GBN
- Date (Revision)
- 2009
- Geographic identifier
-
GREAT BRITAIN [id=139600]
- Date (Creation)
- 1979
N
S
E
W
- Begin date
- 1994
- End date
- 2010
- Unique resource identifier
- OSGB 1936 / British National Grid (EPSG::27700)
- Distribution format
-
-
ESRI Shapefile (.shp)
()
-
ESRI Shapefile (.shp)
()
Distributor
British Geological Survey
-
Enquiries
0115 936 3276
Environmental Science Centre, Nicker Hill, Keyworth
,
NOTTINGHAM
,
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
,
NG12 5GG
,
United Kingdom
0115 936 3143
0115 936 3276
- OnLine resource
-
BGS Datasets – Mineral resources
(
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--related
)
Access to the BGS dataset catalogue to licence the dataset.
- Hierarchy level
- dataset Dataset
- Other
- dataset
Conformance result
- Date (Publication)
- 2011
- Explanation
- See the referenced specification
- Pass
- No
Conformance result
- Date (Publication)
- 2010-12-08
- Explanation
- See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:323:0011:0102:EN:PDF
- Pass
- No
- Statement
- This UK dataset is derived from the integration of mineral resource datasets originally produced for England, Scotland and Wales. For the Scottish and Welsh components, BGS DiGMapGB-50 version 5 geology polygons were clipped to administrative areas and geological lithologies were supplied to Economic Geologists for interpretation of bedrock and superficial formations that might be of current or future economic value. These interpretations were extracted from DiGMapGB-50 and attributed as mineral resources. Draft maps were reviewed internally and with stakeholders, revised where areas were considered uneconomic or unworkable, and then prepared as cleaned GIS datasets. Polygons were dissolved by mineral resource name, sliver polygons removed where possible, multipart features converted to singlepart, redundant attributes removed, and geometry repaired. Final datasets were approved by an Economic Geologist. For England, the dataset is derived from a series of county-based mineral resource mapping projects commissioned between 1994 and 2006 by the Department of the Environment (DoE), Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Early datasets were digitised in MicroStation and later converted to ArcView format; more recent datasets were derived directly from BGS DiGMapGB data and edited in ArcView/ArcGIS. Revisions were undertaken in 2011–2012 following new research and the release of DiGMapGB-50 version 5. In 2020, minor revisions to geometry and attributes were applied across the national datasets in response to minor corrections. Paper map products were not re-released following these updates. The national datasets were subsequently harmonised and merged by BGS to produce a single, onshore, UK-wide mineral resources dataset for online spatial delivery.
- File identifier
- 4b1d6a09-2685-32e2-e063-3050940a53b5 XML
- Metadata language
- EnglishEnglish
- Hierarchy level
- dataset Dataset
- Date stamp
- 2026-05-04
- Metadata standard name
- UK GEMINI
- Metadata standard version
- 2.3
Point of contact
British Geological Survey
The Lyell Centre, Research Avenue South
,
EDINBURGH
,
LOTHIAN
,
EH14 4AP
,
United Kingdom
+44 131 667 1000
- Dataset URI
- http://data.bgs.ac.uk/id/dataHolding/13608639
Overviews
Spatial extent
N
S
E
W
Provided by
Associated resources
Not available
NERC Data Catalogue Service