Minerals are naturally occurring; they are not made by humans. They are inorganic in that they have never been alive and are not made up from plants or animals. They are solid, not liquids (like water), or gases (like the air around you). Each one is made of a particular mix of chemical elements arranged in a particular way. Minerals mined in Ireland include gypsum, copper, lead and zinc.

Most rocks that we see today are made of minerals (they are the 'ingredients' in rocks).

The map shows locations where minerals have been found in Ireland. These can be on any scale, from tiny specs of pyrite to outcrops (rock which can be seen on the land surface) which are miles long.

The accuracy of the data location is to less than 10m for over half the data and to less than 100m for two thirds of the data. However the rest of the data can be anywhere up to 10km accurate. These occurrences date from the 1970s to 2009.

Data was gathered from work carried out by the GSI.

It is a vector dataset. Vector data portray the world using points, lines, and polygons (areas).

The data is shown as points. Points are coloured according to whether or not they contain metal. Each point holds information on the type of mineral, if it has metal, comments, townland and county.