Three primary areas of interest are covered by this map service, Central Kentucky Mineral District (CKMD), Western Kentucky Fluorspar District (WKFD), and South-Central Mineral District (SKMD). These are recognized regions of established ore deposits that had been explored or mined for over 100 years for fluorspar, zinc, or barite from mapped mineral vein deposits and associated ore bodies. Included are several areas of iron ore mining activity and regions of historic phosphate mining.

The data in this service is complex and covers documents derived from numerous mining companies active in the districts. As such, the quality of the data varies from basic field or mine notes, to formal reports and maps. Many mine names have changed and may be known as an alias. Different companies may have reworked the same mine creating multiple or different mine names for the same locality. In these cases, the alias name was included and placed in parentheses. The most dominant mine name was chosen as the best criteria in the WKFD in order to resolve some of these database and organizational issues, since there are primarily three counties in the district and hundreds of mines and prospects. In the CKMD, data are organized by county name; and when some data are selected, all available information for that county may be presented to the user. The SKMD is organized by counties and contains numerous cores that are considered significant. No actual mining took place in the Kentucky portion of this district and only one exploration shaft was constructed, the Cominco American shaft in Cumberland County.

Drill hole logs are problematic since there have been thousands of cores drilled throughout the mining districts and individual location maps were sometimes not available nor referenced from a known standard coordinate system. For instance, many Alcoa logs and maps were provided and available for download, but the coordinates are plotted from an Alcoa reference point. The supporting base maps are thus generally located by their polygonal footprint, whereas their individual drill hole locations are not.

From a vast collection of approximately 20,000 scanned images of multipage reports, field notes, maps, core logs, cross sections, etc., a minerals document database of over 3700 PDFs were compiled and then finally linked to a geospatial feature class of mineral location data. There may be additional tabular and descriptive core data available through the Core and Sample Holdings database search engine or its associated map service at the KGS Website. Geochemical and geophysical data are available for some mine areas, as well as some limestone quarries which are included when important.

These data are a digital compilation of spatially referenced point locations for all mapped mines, shafts, dikes, prospects, outcrops, core holes, and drill holes associated with the mineral ore industry of Kentucky. Also included are linear features of mineral veins and igneous dikes, as well as their respective areal extents. Much of these data, especially in the WKFD, were secured from maps, drill hole logs, field notes, and interpretations that were donated to the KGS, as well as from locations posted on topographic base maps. Most of the remaining data were captured and cataloged during digital map conversion of the scanned geologic quadrangle maps. Consistent data attribution for the various features was finalized utilizing GIS software, links to scanned documents (maps, reports, core logs, sections) were completed, and the compiled feature data was then posted to the map service.

As more spatial data and/or associated documents are added to the minerals database, this map service will be updated as needed. Links to documents will be refined to be more site-specific. Some links currently return more documents than are currently necessary. Summary reports, reserve studies, and regional maps are also available, but may not be easily found on the map server at this time. These information should be available in future releases.

This compilation was performed by staff at the Kentucky Geological Survey with assistance in document scanning by students of the University of Kentucky from the period 2000-2013. Funding was supported, in part, by various grants from the U.S. Geological Survey. Acknowledgment is made to Richard Smath, who supervised over 50 students for scanning documents during the time period, Tom Sparks, for initial database organization and integration, and Doug Curl, for the database and internet map server implementation.

Special acknowledgement is also extended to the many people who donated information or allowed us to use their data for public use. These individuals were or are still active in the mining industry and include Mr. William R. Frazer, Marion, Ky; Robert D. Trace, Brownsville, TX; Boyce Moodie III, Smithland, Ky; Del Harper and Fred Smith, Tennessee, and the countless other geologists and mining engineers who contributed vital information and documentation on the early mining activity in the district. Many of them wrote publications and contributed to earlier War Minerals and U.S. Bureau of Mines Reports.