MINFILE Inventory Database

Mineral Inventory describes the extent and volume of the reserve contained within a mineral deposit described by its referenced MINFILE_File record. MINFILE contains geological, location and economic information on 15,142 metallic, industrial mineral and coal occurrences in British Columbia. The database is used by government, industry and academia for resource management, land-use planning, exploration and research.

The Inventory 'Reserve' category is used only for an inventory in an operating mine or a mine near production. Ore reserves are reported as Proven, Probable and Possible. The Resource category is used for all other inventories. Resources are reported as Measured, Indicated and Inferred. A combination of categories is reported as Combined. If the category is not known then Unclassified is used. Sample data can be entered using the Assay/Analysis category. The reserves/resources are reported in tonnes with the grade of commodities.

In general, the inventory is identified by occurrence, zone name and year. There may be an unlimited number of ore zones per occurrence. In addition, each zone name may have inventory for each category. Each ore zone can have a maximum of two inventory calculations per year, per category (e.g., Calculation A & B). This allows for changes in calculations due to grade-tonnage relationships; calculation A may be high-grade low tonnage while calculation B may reflect a low-grade tonnage. Generally, only data for the most recent year is maintained in the database. Only one calculation may be used per ore zone in the ASSAY/ANALYSIS category. The ASSAY/ANALYSIS data cannot coexist with reserves information for any given ore zone name.

Datasets available for download

• BC Geographic Warehouse Custom Downloadmultiple
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• MINFILE Reserve MetadataXLSX
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• WMS getCapabilities requestWMS
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• MINFILE_ReserveCSV
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• Download KML Ground Overlay fileKML
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• British Columbia place
• Industrial Mineral
• analysis
• assay
• combined
• commodities
• commodity grade
• digital data
• geology
• grade of commodity
• grade-tonnage
• high-grade ore
• host rock
• indicated resource
• inferred resource
• inventory
• measured resource
• metallic
• mineral inventory
• mineral occurrence
• mineral resources
• operating mine
• ore reserves
• ore zone
• past production
• possible reserve
• probable reserve
• production
• proven reserve
• quantity
• reserve
• reserves information
• resources
• sample type
• tonnes
• unclassified

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (46%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (20%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 19, 2025, 23:20 (UTC)
Created	October 19, 2025, 23:20 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title Title for the Dataset.	MINFILE Inventory Database
Description A description of the dataset.	Mineral Inventory describes the extent and volume of the reserve contained within a mineral deposit described by its referenced MINFILE_File record. MINFILE contains geological, location and economic information on 15,142 metallic, industrial mineral and coal occurrences in British Columbia. The database is used by government, industry and academia for resource management, land-use planning, exploration and research. The Inventory 'Reserve' category is used only for an inventory in an operating mine or a mine near production. Ore reserves are reported as Proven, Probable and Possible. The Resource category is used for all other inventories. Resources are reported as Measured, Indicated and Inferred. A combination of categories is reported as Combined. If the category is not known then Unclassified is used. Sample data can be entered using the Assay/Analysis category. The reserves/resources are reported in tonnes with the grade of commodities. In general, the inventory is identified by occurrence, zone name and year. There may be an unlimited number of ore zones per occurrence. In addition, each zone name may have inventory for each category. Each ore zone can have a maximum of two inventory calculations per year, per category (e.g., Calculation A & B). This allows for changes in calculations due to grade-tonnage relationships; calculation A may be high-grade low tonnage while calculation B may reflect a low-grade tonnage. Generally, only data for the most recent year is maintained in the database. Only one calculation may be used per ore zone in the ASSAY/ANALYSIS category. The ASSAY/ANALYSIS data cannot coexist with reserves information for any given ore zone name.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	British Columbia place Industrial Mineral analysis assay combined commodities commodity grade digital data geology grade of commodity grade-tonnage high-grade ore host rock indicated resource inferred resource inventory measured resource metallic mineral inventory mineral occurrence mineral resources operating mine ore reserves ore zone past production possible reserve probable reserve production proven reserve quantity reserve reserves information resources sample type tonnes unclassified
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2014-12-11
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Access Only
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/minfile-inventory-database
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	BC Geological Survey
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Yao Cui
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?	[email protected]
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content?id=4AFF9349E99448C198394D5425104F55
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.	MINFILE contains 15,142 metallic, industrial mineral and coal occurrences for British Columbia. Each of these occurrences contain 84 data elements describing mineral deposits in terms of geography, geology and economics. Started out as a card file, then to VAX, then to a microcomputer application, and finally to a web-based searcheable database, with display on interactive maps.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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