Digital scans of over 500 historical plans of abandoned mines (non-coal) have been released by the National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC) as part of BGS’s commitment to providing more open, accessible data for its users.   

In the late 1800s, the Coal Mines Regulation Act and Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act created the statutory requirement for the deposition of plans of abandoned mines by mine owners to the Secretary of State. In 1980, the BGS Edinburgh office was appointed as the statutory place of deposit for plans of abandoned non-coal and oil shale mines in Scotland. These plans have been preserved and managed by the NGDC, which is NERC’s Environmental Data Service designated geoscience data centre that is hosted by BGS. NGDC collects and preserves geoscientific data and information, making them available for the long term to a wide range of users and communities.

To reflect the µþ³Ò³§ commitment to more open, accessible data for its users, the decision was taken to make scans of these non-coal mine abandoned plans digitally accessible to the public. This decision comes at an important time when there is increased interest in the potential of mine water for developing geothermal energy technologies. Having these plans openly accessible means they can be used in desk-based studies for those working in the public and private sectors doing site investigations, hazard assessments or further academic research. 

NGDC is committed to providing findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data (FAIR data) and this includes reviewing access to legacy datasets. The release of over 500 plans demonstrates our commitment to being a trusted provider of geological data and knowledge.

Alison Steven, BGS Data Operations and Governance Manger (NGDC).

The plans can be viewed via the and can be filtered by selecting ‘Abandonment plan’ from the plan type drop-down menu.

These abandoned mine plans are part of a collection of over 70 000 plans delivered through the viewer, including sixteen different plan types such as open cast, quarry and cave plans. The portal can be searched by geographical area, mineral or mine name. The information returned includes mine name, mineral, geographical area, plan date (where available), whether a digital copy of the plan is available and who to contact to purchase copies of a scanned plan. 

More information

Abandoned mines plans for Northern Ireland can be accessed via the .

Further information on the history of non-coal mining plans is available through the BGS website.

Please contact the for any enquiries relating to coal mine plans in Scotland, England and Wales – or visit their .

A groundbreaking development by BGS in mineral data accessibility uses the Open Geospatial Consortium Application Programming Interface (OGC API) ‘Features’ standard, transforming how users interact with and interrogate an invaluable resource.

A wealth of data at your fingertips

The is the cornerstone for understanding global mineral production and trade. It houses decades of meticulously collected data on over 70 mineral commodities across numerous countries. Previously, this information was only accessible from pre-formatted reports or by requesting manual extraction for data.

Adding this treasure trove of data to our OGC API Features service allows users to query the data for themselves. This means it is now readily accessible to a much broader audience. Developers, researchers, policymakers and industry professionals can now seamlessly integrate mineral statistics into their applications, analyses and decision-making processes.

Harnessing the power of OGC API Features

The decision to adopt the OGC API Features standard is a strategic move that ensures interoperability and compatibility with a wide range of software and systems. This open standard ensures that the data will work with existing tools for data discovery, retrieval and visualisation, empowering users to explore and analyse mineral statistics data with unprecedented ease.

Key benefits of using OGC API Features include:Key benefits of using OGC API Features include:

• standardised data access: consistent API structure for easy integration
• flexible data retrieval: ability to query specific data subsets based on various criteria

• Example URL:
• An is also available

Unlocking new possibilities

51ÁÔÆæ’s new API opens a world of possibilities for data-driven insights and innovation. Potential applications include:

• historical market analysis: tracking global production volumes and UK trade flows
• policy development: informing resource management and sustainability strategies

By making the BGS World Mineral Statistics Database more accessible and user friendly, BGS is fostering a vibrant ecosystem of data-driven applications and services. This move aligns with the growing trend towards open data and data-driven innovation, driving economic growth and sustainable development.

51ÁÔÆæ’s commitment to open data and collaboration sets a commendable example for other data custodians in the public and private sectors.

Edd Lewis, data standards lead at BGS.

Other data services

µþ³Ò³§ OGC Catalogue service for the web (CSW) provides a standards-based interface to discover, browse and query metadata about BGS datasets and data services.

• (beta)

In an effort to streamline petroleum licence information management, data from the National Hydrocarbons Data Archive (NHDA) has been transferred from BGS to the National Data Repository (NDR), which is hosted by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA). 

The NHDA was a system managed by BGS on behalf of the former Department of Trade and Industry and Department of Energy and Climate. It held geoscientific data from operators requesting relief from their data management and storage obligations. These Government departments and systems have been superseded by NSTA, which has created the NDR to make its data assets openly available to . The transfer of this data ensures users can freely access all data relating to petroleum licences in one place.

The data includes offshore surveys, well data and some seismic survey information, all of which are now freely accessible to download. The data could support a range of purposes, from use cases in traditional exploration and production to applications in the energy transition such as carbon storage and offshore wind.

The NSTA and BGS collaboration has enabled the formulation of plans for NHDA’s decommissioning after nearly two decades of operation.

This initiative reflects both organisations’ ongoing commitment to improving access to data to enable the UK energy transition, while maintaining energy security.

Nic Granger, NSTA Director of Corporate.

By working collaboratively with NSTA, we have enhanced access to this nationally important data archive to support the UK energy transition.

Emma Bee, head of the National Geoscience Data Centre.

Over 8000 technical reports have been released by BGS’s National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC), comprising internal unpublished works created outside the formal publishing and distribution system. They pre-date the current report series and, for any given title, only a few copies were produced for deposit in BGS libraries or offices, making them traditionally hard to find and access. They cover the full spectrum of BGS activities and subjects, including:

• onshore geology, including the important ‘geological notes and local details’ (essentially, sheet descriptions for 1:10 560/1:10 000 maps)
• marine geology
• minerology and petrology
• mineral resources
• global seismology
• geomagnetism

The 16 series and just under 100 subseries can now be navigated via the ; more detailed notes on this complex set of reports are available on . A search facility for authors and titles is also available in the application. The file sizes of technical reports are much smaller than formal BGS publications, so they have been made available as PDF downloads only.

This first technical report release represents BGS’s non-confidential reports. A second project is underway to review confidential reports with a view to a future release.

The release of these reports demonstrates BGS’s continued commitment to providing open access to geoscience data of value to the nation. These reports, created by BGS during the latter half of the past century and now all in digital form, contain a wealth of geological information and knowledge that is now easier to access and utilise.

Alison Steven, data operations and governance manager (NGDC).

The Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre (CMIC) has completed scanning a subset of the Mineral Exploration and Investigation Grants Act (MEIGA) reports that are held at BGS. These reports represent the records of 267 mineral exploration projects carried out in the UK between 1971 and 1984 (NERC, 2023). The first batch of scanned reports is now available to access on the .

MEIGA was funded under the former Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) through grants for mineral exploration of non-ferrous metals, fluorspar, barium and potash. This scheme resulted in significant new discoveries and developments, including the Gairloch copper–zinc–gold deposit, the Parys Mountain copper–lead–zinc deposit and the Hemerdon tungsten–tin deposit (Minerals UK, 2023).

CMIC is delivering the MEIGA reports in a geographically searchable, online and free-to-access format. The release of these reports will aid those assessing the UK prospectivity for critical minerals. They complement the report on the ‘Potential for critical raw material prospectivity in the UK’ produced by CMIC and BGS (Deady et al., 2023).

Although these have been available in hardcopy on demand, in view of the new UK Critical Raw Materials Strategy we thought it was timely to scan and release the data now. It provides an excellent opportunity to reassess previously collected data at no cost to the user.

Eimear Deady, BGS Economic Geologist.

The MEIGA reports contain:

• geological mapping
• soil and stream sediment geochemistry data
• geophysical surveys
• drill core logs
• assay data

The geological material collected in the 1970s and 1980s is available for viewing at BGS through the core store booking process and available online on the , where anyone can explore the MEIGA areas.

CMIC works closely with the Department of Business and Trade, which funds CMIC, and this data supports the Government Critical Minerals Strategy by providing accessible historical information to companies wishing to explore the UK critical mineral potential (BEIS, 2022). Accordingly, this release plays an essential role in supporting a more secure energy transition to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The geographical distribution of the MEIGA areas and associated reports can be viewed on the BGS GeoIndex, which holds a wealth of additional information from historical exploration campaigns conducted by BGS and industry. This includes borehole records, earthquake data and interactive 3D maps.

• Learn more about the GeoIndex

51ÁÔÆæ released its first interactive isotope biosphere map in 2018, which enabled users to enter isotope data and find spatial matches and exclusions that helped source their samples. This is primarily used to help archaeologists study and identify human and animal migration, but it also has applications in the modern world of animal migration and food characterisation.

New sulphur isotope variation component

As part of an upgrade to the online map, we have now included a sulphur isotope variation for Great Britain. The beautiful map has been produced through sulphur isotope analyses of over 500 plants from across Britain. This has only been made possible by the reduction of modern sulphur pollution, which, until recently, swamped the natural sulphur signal.   

The plants’ sulphur isotope composition varies between values of around +20 parts per thousand in areas affected by modern marine influences, down to negative values as low as around -30 parts per thousand where the plants are growing in areas of anoxic reducing conditions.  

Sulphur values

The data has been formed into domains using a method called inverse distance weighting, with a superimposed marine domain for the coastal region. The resulting map highlights the following features that have not been seen before.

Firstly, there is a zonation of plant sulphur values from north to south, with the high marine influence that extends into central Scotland caused by prevailing wind conditions, transporting rain and sea spray inland.

In southern England, there is an area of negative values running from Peterborough to the Somerset Levels. These are areas underlain by Jurassic mudrocks. Recent research has shown that this lithology supports low and often very negative sulphur isotope values. These are due to both the reducing conditions during deposition and the rocks’ impervious nature, which leads to contemporary wetland development.

The coastal sulphur zone is based on traverses inland to assess the extent of sea spray influence. This work shows that there is a greater coastal zone on the west compared to the east coast.  

Further map upgrades

In addition to the sulphur map, the website upgrade includes an updated strontium (Sr) isotope map, which is now based on geological domains. Updates to this map identify new areas where elevated ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values are recorded. These include the granites of south-west England, especially around their thermal aureole, and Sherwood Forest, where the ancient woodland has leached out carbonate to leave ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr-rich substrates.

As ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr provenance studies are increasingly used on animals as well as humans, the land usage of these species need to be accounted for. Whereas human teeth mineralise over one to three years and are thus an average of all the strontium dietary inputs over this time, herbivore teeth can be sampled to represent only a few months of ingestion, which might well represent a single field.

Two levels of strontium data are now available in the search system. The first uses the central 50 per cent of plant data to equate to human consumption, whereas the second uses the central 90 per cent of the plant data to account for the greater variability in herbivore teeth.

A lead (Pb) isotope layer has also been added. This is based on mineral compositions and its aim is to produce a basic discrimination for England, Wales and Scotland based on the age of mineralisation in these areas.

Usage

Use of the map is free and all data is accessible and downloadable. We would be very interested to hear from potential users about any applications, development ideas or comments they have and hope to collaborate with users to continue to develop this resource through time.

Developers

The database and map have been created by:

• Jane Evans and Carolyn Chenery from the
• Katy Mee and Andy Marchant from BGS Informatics

About the author

The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) has authorised the release of all the well data for onshore hydrocarbon boreholes held by BGS in the National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC). Unlike borehole data from the North Sea, which has been available free of charge for some time, the data relating to these onshore boreholes was previously only available via data release agents. It is now available free of charge to industry, academics and the public via the , providing a new, free resource that will add to the knowledge necessary to meet net zero objectives.

Why is the data significant?

Few boreholes have been drilled to these depths (over 1 km) onshore in the UK and are almost exclusively a consequence of oil, gas or coal exploration. The oil and gas wells deeply penetrate the crust under the UK mainland and are geographically widespread across the UK.

Unlike coal wells, the oil and gas drilling data is better structured and better conforms to global standards of deep geological and deep geophysical data collection.

Most of the direct knowledge and samples that BGS has access to about the deep geology of the UK are based upon this data.

Why is the data being released?

Data from these deep hydrocarbon wells forms the best dataset to understand the geology of the deep UK subsurface. Widening access to the dataset could enhance the knowledge needed to meet net zero objectives:

• assessing the suitability of UK rocks for extraction of geothermal heat
• storing surplus energy from renewables and waste materials such as carbon dioxide
• identifying potential new mineral resources. 

The data has been provided to BGS under regulation PON 9B, which sets out the records and samples requirements for onshore surveys and wells licensed by the NSTA. The data was previously held for BGS internal science use only, so this release widens the community of scientists who can access this important dataset. It includes the data for all boreholes that have been released (four years post-drilling) and for which BGS holds original geophysical data.

Data is being released using an Open Government Licence, which allows users to copy, publish, distribute and transmit the information, adapt the information and exploit the information commercially and non-commercially, provided that they acknowledge the source of the information.

The NSTA has collected data from more than 2200 onshore wells drilled in the search for oil and gas. Historically, half of that data were released through the 51ÁÔÆæ (BGS) with the rest provided by Data Release Agents on behalf of the NSTA. The new arrangement with the BGS means that all onshore hydrocarbon well data will be available from BGS. This free access to the unique onshore data will support the investment and innovation necessary to enable the ongoing energy transition.

Alan Poole, North Sea Transition Authority Geoscientist

51ÁÔÆæ GeoIndex

The data is available via the on a layer called ‘Onshore UK hydrocarbon well data’ and currently includes over 60 000 logs from 1200 wells and the number is still increasing. All related records in the BGS Borehole Index (which contains summary borehole metadata) have also been marked as open, releasing over 2000 records that were previously marked as confidential in the index.

About the authors

As part of our continuous effort to provide more open access to our data, BGS has launched the The renewed portal provides access to over 45 000 BGS maps and sections with the following themes:

• geological
• geophysical
• geochemical
• hydrogeological

The large-scale 10 000 and 1:10 560 BGS onshore geological maps collection is included in this portal for public viewing for the first time, along with the key 1:50 000 and 1:63 360 maps of England, Wales and Scotland.

Map portal features

The new portal will allow users to view all publicly available, maps held by BGS, with quick-view thumbnail browsing and an increased number of scanned images. Users can view the collections for free; those wishing to purchase their own copy of a map can buy high-resolution PDFs through .

A small number of maps do not have scans; for completeness, we have provided the full catalogue with all the maps’ details, omitting image links where scans do not exist.

We hope that, by providing this enhanced service, the maps portal will better meet our users’ diverse needs. However, it is important to note that users should visit µþ³Ò³§ digital dataset BGS Geology, or the onshore GeoIndex to access the latest digital vector mapping. The digital vector data in these services can differ significantly from the mostly historical maps presented in the maps portal so the most up-to-date vector data should be consulted for more professional user needs.

History of geological mapping at BGS

Since µþ³Ò³§ inception in 1835, our maps have evolved in differing iterations of scale. Initially surveyed and produced at the 1:63 360 (one inch to one mile) scale, the decision was made in the 1850s to carry out geological surveys at the 1:10 560 scale (six inches to one mile). This standard large-scale map scale for recording field-survey information and producing maps continued for much of BGS’s existence and was based primarily on the Ordnance Survey County Sheet lines.

The next major change came in the 1940s, when these ‘County Series’ maps began to be replaced by National Grid sheet line maps. Finally, in the late 1970s, the metric 1:10 000 scale was introduced and became the standard large-scale format for field mapping. A small number of remote areas were mapped and provided at the 1:25 000 scale.

The new 2023 to 2028 BGS Strategy ‘Understanding our Earth’ includes a renewed focus on national mapping, an aim which is supported by the renewal of the BGS Maps Portal.

One of the key science priorities identified in the new BGS Strategy focuses on the provision of geological maps and models and, in particular, ensuring that information about the underlying geology of our country is accessible. The new enhancements to the BGS Maps Portal, particularly the addition of the large-scale 1:10000 maps and improved search features, very much align with this aim and are a significant step forward in maximising the value of our spatial data.

Dr David Schofield, BGS Director of National and International Geoscience.