Geology shapefiles for the United States and Australia

These data present geologic map units for the United States (Horton and others, 2017; Wilson and others, 2015) and Australia (Raymond and others, 2012) reclassified to 31 generalized sub-type lithologic groups of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks (Lawley and others, 2022). These generalized classifications are based on interpretation of map unit descriptions in the different map compilations. Given that map unit descriptions often contain multiple rock types, there were subjective calls necessary when assigning generalized lithologic classification. The data were developed as part of the tri-national Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative (Kelley, 2020) between the United States, Canada, and Australia, an effort to model and map prospectivity for basin-hosted Pb-Zn mineralization.
A national-scale geologic map compilation for Canada is not publicly available. Therefore, Lawley and others (2021) compiled geologic source maps to produce a gridded model layer that is provided in this data release in the Child Items section “Gridded geology shapefiles for the United States, Canada, and Australia.”
References
Horton, J.D., San Juan, C.A., and Stoeser, D.B., 2017, The State Geologic Map Compilation (SGMC) geodatabase of the conterminous United States (ver. 1.1, August 2017): U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 1052, 46 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ds1052.
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., Gadd, M.G., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., and Czarnota, K., 2021, Datasets to support prospectivity modelling for sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems: Natural Resources Canada Open File 8836, https://doi.org/10.4095/329203.
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.
Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., and Highet, L.M., 2012, Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition: Geoscience Australia, http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/74619.
Wilson, F.H., Hults, C.P., Mull, C.G., and Karl, S.M., comps., 2015, Geologic map of Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3340, 2 sheets, scale 1:1,584,000, 196-p. pamphlet, https://doi.org/10.3133/sim3340.

Tags: australia, cmmi, critical-minerals-mapping-initiative, exploring-for-the-future-program, ga, geologic-maps, geological-survey-of-canada, geology, geology-geophysics-and-geochemistry-science-center, geoscience-australia, geoscientificinformation, geospatial-datasets, gggsc, gsc, igneous-rocks, lithology, metamorphic-rocks, mineral-resources-program, mrp, rocks-and-deposits, sedimentary-rocks, targeted-geoscience-initiative, tgi, u-s-geological-survey, unconsolidated-deposits, united-states, usgs, usgs-623a013ed34e915b67cddcfa
Organization: Department of the Interior