Imagery Atlas features: a free prospecting, geology and land map

Topographic maps and historic topos USGS

Current USGS topographic maps, and the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection from the 1880s to 2006. A year slider shows the maps published up to that year, and a scale box picks 1:24,000, 1:62,500, 1:125,000, 1:250,000 and other series (including Alaska's 1:63,360).

Source

USGS, served by Esri

Coverage

United States

Aerial and satellite imagery, with imagery history GOOGLEESRI

Google satellite imagery, and Esri World Imagery with a history slider that steps back through archived imagery releases since 2014, showing each photo's date, provider and resolution.

Source

Google; Esri World Imagery and World Imagery Wayback

Coverage

Worldwide

LIDAR hillshade USGSESRI

Bare-earth shaded relief that shows old workings, trenches, tailings, roads, faults and landforms hidden under trees. USGS 3DEP uses the best elevation data available, often 1 m LIDAR; Esri World Hillshade is a fast fallback. Viewed USGS tiles are kept in your browser for 30 days so revisits load quickly.

Source

USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP); Esri

Coverage

United States (LIDAR detail where flown)

Geologic maps MACROSTRATUSGS

Two geologic map layers: Macrostrat's compiled geologic map, and the USGS mosaic of published geologic maps.

Source

Macrostrat (University of Wisconsin); USGS National Geologic Map Database

Coverage

United States (Macrostrat worldwide at small scale)

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Macrostrat: formation, unit, lithology, age and the source map. USGS: a link to the source maps and their legends at that spot.

Snowpack, color relief, roads and water NOAAESRI

Snowpack: NOAA snow water equivalent (inches of water in the snow), modelled daily at 1 km. Color Relief: terrain tinted by elevation and shaded like a raised-relief wall map, in Classic, Desert or Rainbow colors, stretched to the view or fixed. Roads and Water: named roads, rivers, streams and lakes drawn over every other layer.

Source

NOAA National Snow Analysis; AWS Terrain Tiles (USGS 3DEP); Esri

Coverage

Snowpack: lower 48 states. Others: United States and beyond.

Coordinates, elevation and township/range/section readout

The cursor readout shows latitude and longitude, elevation, and optionally UTM and township, range and section. "Go To T/R/Sec." jumps to any PLSS section by state, meridian, township, range and section.

Source

BLM PLSS (CadNSDI); AWS Terrain Tiles

Coverage

PLSS states; elevation everywhere

PLSS grid and BLM public land status BLM

The public land survey grid (township, range, section) and the BLM surface management map: BLM, Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Reclamation, Defense, Indian Affairs, state, city/county and Alaska Native lands, with a legend.

Source

Bureau of Land Management

Coverage

United States (PLSS in the public land survey states)

Mining claims map: open, closed and closed in the past year BLM

Open (not closed) lode and placer mining claims with their patterns, the full history of closed claims, and claims closed or updated in the past year, to spot ground that has just come open.

Source

BLM Mineral & Land Records System (MLRS)

Coverage

Western states with federal mining claims; shows from zoom 9 in

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Claim name, type, serial and legacy numbers, acres, disposition, the state, meridian, township, range, section and aliquot list, and links to the MLRS case record and serial register report.

Federal mineral estate (split estate) BLM

Where the federal government owns the minerals, including under private surface.

Source

BLM state offices

Coverage

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Oregon

Private parcels and land owners STATE

Parcel boundaries from free public state and county data, loaded for whichever source covers the view.

Source

State and county parcel services

Coverage

Alaska (20 boroughs and cities), Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho (no owner names), Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma (view only), Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, plus Maricopa, Mohave, Pima and Pinal counties in Arizona

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Owner, owner mailing address (where published), property address, county, acres and parcel ID, with a note when the source is an older snapshot.

BLM withdrawals and mining operations BLM

Withdrawals: land withdrawn from entry, colored red where the record closes it to mining claims, orange where some minerals are restricted and grey otherwise. Mining Operations: notices (5 acres or less) and plans of operations for locatable minerals on file with BLM.

Source

BLM MLRS case records

Coverage

BLM-administered lands nationwide; shows from zoom 7 in

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Case type, status, serial number, what minerals and surface it closes, commodity, effective and expiry dates, acres and the MLRS record link.

Mines and prospects, by commodity, lode or placer USGS

About 305,000 historic and active mines, prospects and mineral occurrences (267,000 in the United States), drawn with a crossed pick and shovel for mines and an X for prospects (as on topo maps), coloured lode, placer, both or not stated. Whether a site is lode or placer is read from its whole record (operation, deposit type and model, workings, ore and host rock). "Filter by commodity, lode / placer, status" shows only the sites you want, for example gold placers or silver producers, state-wide, and lists the ones in view.

Source

USGS Mineral Resource Data System (MRDS), hosted by Imagery Atlas

Coverage

United States and worldwide

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Site name, commodities (major, minor, trace), lode or placer and why, status, operation and workings, production years and size, deposit type and model, ore and gangue minerals, host rock, structure, alteration, discovery, references and the USGS record.

Topo map mine symbols: shafts, adits, prospect pits and placer workings USGS

Every mine symbol drawn on USGS historical topographic maps, about 726,000 of them: prospect pits and trenches, adits (turned the way they were drawn), shafts, mines, open pits and quarries, placer, hydraulic and dredge workings (crossed shovels, the topo map diggings symbol), mill sites, dumps and tailings, and gravel and borrow pits, each with its own symbol and an on/off box.

Source

USGS USMIN topographic mine symbols, hosted by Imagery Atlas

Coverage

United States

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Feature type, name on the map, adit direction, and the topo map's name, date and scale.

Geochemistry and assays, with filter and rank by element USGS

About 1 million rock, panned concentrate, stream sediment and soil samples from the USGS National Geochemical Database, served from Imagery Atlas's own copy so a whole state's samples appear in seconds. Filter & rank samples by element keeps the samples with one or more chosen elements (gold, silver, copper, lithium, rare earths, any of 76) inside optional ppm ranges, sizes them by concentration and ranks them in a table, for the view or a whole state.

Source

USGS National Geochemical Database (NGDB)

Coverage

United States, including Alaska

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The sample description and every analysis (values and methods), with links to the USGS record.

Magnetic, gravity and radiometric maps; Earth MRI surveys USGS

National magnetic anomaly, isostatic gravity, uranium (eU), thorium (eTh) and radiometric composite maps, and the footprints of new USGS Earth MRI surveys (airborne magnetics and radiometrics, electromagnetics, LIDAR, hyperspectral and geologic mapping).

Source

USGS

Coverage

United States

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Earth MRI: survey name, program, years, and links to the data and project.

Rock cores and cuttings USGSSTATE

Wells and drill holes with rock core or cuttings held in public repositories. The USGS Core Research Center catalog covers about 59,000 wells nationwide. State repositories add the New Mexico Bureau of Geology core and cuttings library (including mineral exploration drill holes), the Arizona Geological Survey drill core repository and the Utah Geological Survey core catalog, plus Idaho borehole lithology logs.

Source

USGS Core Research Center; NMBGMR; AZGS; UGS; National Geothermal Data System (Idaho)

Coverage

USGS: nationwide. State repositories: New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho

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USGS: cored and cuttings intervals and formations, with core photos, thin sections and analysis files. New Mexico: hole type, commodity (for mineral holes), interval held, boxes, formations and library shelf. Arizona: project, company, depth, interval stored and core photos. Utah: purpose (coal, oil shale, tar sands), depth, formation, boxes and whether analyses and logs are on file. Idaho: rock units and lithology by depth.

Oil and gas wells with formation tops STATE

Oil, gas, injection, shut-in, plugged and permitted wells. Wyoming (about 208,000 wells and permits) includes geological markers (formation tops) for about 98,500 wells and the Wyoming State Geological Survey's checked tops. Colorado includes each wellbore's completed formations. Utah, Montana, Arizona and Alaska wells come from their state oil and gas agencies.

Source

WOGCC and WSGS (Wyoming), ECMC (Colorado), and the Utah, Montana, Arizona and Alaska oil and gas agencies

Coverage

Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Arizona, Alaska

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Status, well type, operator, API number, field, basin, total depth, formations, spud and completion dates, elevations; formation tops tables with depth and elevation; link to the state record. Utah adds cumulative oil, gas and water production; Montana lists the cuttings and core chips held by the Board of Oil and Gas; Arizona includes helium, CO2, geothermal and potash exploration wells with their well files.

Water well logs and depth to bedrock STATE

Nevada water well driller's reports (about 146,000), Montana water wells with driller's lithology logs, and the Arizona water well registry.

Source

Nevada Division of Water Resources (NDWR); Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology Ground Water Information Center (GWIC); Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR)

Coverage

Nevada, Montana, Arizona

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Nevada: depth drilled, depth to bedrock, static water level, yield, water temperature, casing, perforations, driller, owner and the scanned driller's log. Montana: depth, water level, driller and the driller's lithology log (materials by depth). Arizona: water use (including mineral exploration and mine dewatering holes), depth, water level, casing, pump test and owner.

Wyoming Precambrian basement map STATE

The top of the Precambrian basement: elevation bands, contours and basement faults.

Source

Wyoming State Geological Survey

Coverage

Wyoming

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Basement elevation, ground elevation and approximate depth to basement, and whether a basement fault is mapped there.

Stratigraphic column anywhere you click MACROSTRAT

Turn on "Stratigraphic Column" and click any spot to see the area's rock column, youngest on top: each formation's name, age, thickness range and lithology, drawn with age colors and rock patterns. A line marks where today's ground surface falls (from the geologic map at that spot), and the units above it, eroded away or never deposited there, stay in the column so you can see what they were.

Source

Macrostrat regional columns and geologic map

Coverage

Most of North America

Sanborn fire insurance maps LOC

Building-by-building town maps from 1876 to 1963, overlaid on the modern map: about 360 towns and 1,100 editions. Zoom out to see towns as dots; pick an edition from the list.

Source

Library of Congress, georeferenced by OldInsuranceMaps.net volunteers

Coverage

Towns across the United States

National Historic Trails and sites NPS

Twenty National Historic Trails, including the Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, Pony Express, Santa Fe, Old Spanish, Butterfield Overland, Lewis and Clark, Nez Perce, Iditarod and Trail of Tears, and public sites along them: stations, springs, ruts, crossings and forts.

Source

National Park Service

Coverage

United States

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Trail names; site name and details.

USGS hydrothermal alteration map USGS

ASTER-based map of argillic, phyllic, silica-rich and propylitic alteration.

Source

USGS

Coverage

Basin and Range: Nevada and parts of Arizona, California, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah

Measure, draw, GPS and KML/KMZ

Measure distance and area, draw lines and shapes, drop labeled pins, show your GPS location, import KML or KMZ files (for example from Google Earth) and export your drawings to KMZ.

Elevation slice

Hide the terrain above, below or between chosen elevations, or relative to a sloped plane, with a line where the ground crosses the level. Sweep the level up and down, and save what is showing as shapes. Useful for benches, old shorelines, terraces and paleochannels.

Source

AWS Terrain Tiles (USGS 3DEP, about 10 m in the US)

Terrain 3D model for 3D printing and CNC

Turn any area into an STL, OBJ or 3MF model, with vertical exaggeration and base settings; OBJ and 3MF can carry a topo, aerial or geology map on the surface.

Specific gravity calculator: gold in quartz

Estimate how much gold is in a quartz and gold specimen from its dry and wet weights, the host rock's specific gravity and the gold's fineness, with an optional value at a chosen gold price.

Precious Metals Toolkit

Gold and silver spot prices, a refiner payout calculator for placer gold, 18K, 14K and 10K gold and sterling silver, and US silver coin melt values.