USGS Data Series 1004: Historical Files from Federal Government Mineral Exploration-Assistance Programs, 1950 to 1974

The Defense Minerals Administration (DMA), Defense Minerals Exploration Administration (DMEA), and Office of Minerals Exploration (OME) mineral exploration programs were active over the period 1950–1974. Under these programs, the Federal Government contributed financial assistance in the exploration for certain strategic and critical minerals. The information about a mining property that was collected under these programs was placed in files called dockets. A docket is a collection of material (application, contract, correspondence, maps, reports, results) about a property for which an individual applied for exploration assistance from the Federal Government. Information found in dockets describe where mineral deposits were examined, what was found, and whether it was mined. As such, they provide very useful information to private industry regarding potential and non-potential prospect areas, provide the U.S. Geological Survey with useful information on mineral occurrences that are used in national assessments for particular mineral deposits, and provide other U.S. Federal agencies (Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, and Environmental Protection Agency) information relevant to land management, permitting, and leasing.

Use the navigation on the left for information about the programs and how to download scans (.pdf format, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader DC) of dockets.

The map below depicts the number of dockets per county in the United States. There are dockets for properties in 44 of the 50 States. The majority of site locations reside in one of the 11 Western States, which may be accessed using the map below or the navigation menu to the left. Dockets from Alaska and Hawaii, as well as those outside the 11 Western States, can be accessed using the "All dockets by State" link in the left navigation menu. Note that in this report, two-letter State abbreviations are those of the U.S. Postal Service.

Map showing number of dockets per County. Click on a western State for more detail. All other States can be viewed by selecting All by State under the docket links menu above.

Docket Scans

The entire collection of dockets was scanned using optical character recognition (OCR), when possible, and converted into Portable Document Format (.pdf). The PDF files in this data series were compiled using PDF catalog technology. There can be be multiple PDF documents within a single PDF file. Viewing the PDF’s through a browser (IE, Chrome, Firefox, etc.) will not access all pages in a PDF file. To insure access to the entire PDF, it is strongly recommended that the user download the file and save it before opening it with a PDF reader. Acrobat Reader DC (free) is the recommended PDF reader to use to view all files in this data series.The file size of a scanned docket varies from less than 1 megabyte (MB) to 500 MB, based on the amount of information contained in the original docket and how many (if any) oversized maps are included in the scan.

Scan capture resolution ranges from 600–1,200 dots per inch (dpi) depending on original document quality. Oversized maps were scanned at higher resolutions. Original dockets are composed of vintage 1950–1970 era paper, carbon-paper copies, mimeograph copies, linen, mylar, and other fragile and sometimes poor quality media. Overall, most documents are clear and legible. Scans include all docket material, including hand-written notes and oversized maps that may have been hand drawn and colored (not OCR captured).

File sizes of scanned dockets vary from less than 1 MB to 500 MB. Download times for large files will vary based on Internet connection speed, network traffic, and computer processor speed.