exp_readme.txt U.S. Geological Survey publication DS-173, Idaho and Montana Non-Fuel Exploration Database 1980-1997, contains a report (exp.pdf) in Portable Document Format (PDF), a spatial database in shapefile format, a relational database in Microsoft Access version 2000 format, and FGDC-compliant metadata in ASCII format. The report, metadata, and data files are provided as separate downloads from the USGS website http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/2006/173. The data described in the report are in a zip file that contains the relational database (Exp.mdb), and a spatial database (seven files with the prefix 'exp'). The metadata are also provided with the shapefile in xml format. The reader will need software that can uncompress zip format files. The report can be read with a free program (Adobe Reader) available from Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html). The Access database can be opened in Microsoft Access version 2000 and newer. The spatial database can be read by any software that supports shapefile format such as the free ArcExplorer program available from ESRI (http://www.esri.com/).