BLM Natl MLRS Locatable Plans of Operations: Authorized or Pending Mineral Cases

The US Bureau of Land Management's Mineral and Land Record System (MLRS) provides this dataset of plans of operations for locatable mineral cases. It contains cases with dispositions of 'Authorized' or 'Pending', geocoded using the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) and includes a data quality score for each case's mapping accuracy. The dataset was last updated on 2026-04-14.

Use Cases

• Assess the spatial distribution of active and pending mining operations based on geocoded case locations.
• Evaluate data quality for land use analysis based on the seven mapping score groups described.
• Study locatable mineral claims under the 1872 General Mining Law based on the case descriptions.
• Integrate mining operation data with other cadastral or environmental datasets using PLSS geometry.

Strengths

• Includes a detailed data quality scoring system with seven distinct groups for mapping accuracy.
• Geospatial data is derived from the most accurate survey data available through the BLM Cadastral Survey workforce.
• Cases are filtered to include only 'Authorized' or 'Pending' plan-level operations.

Limitations

• Geospatial representations are missing for some cases that could not be geocoded using the MLRS algorithm.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

US Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior.

Collection Method

Derived from Legal Land Descriptions (LLD) in the MLRS and geocoded using the Public Land Survey System (PLSS).

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-14 16:47:30.240024; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States public lands.