This dataset comprises reports and associated project documentation from mineral exploration projects undertaken in Great Britain under the Mineral Exploration and Investigation Grants Act (MEIGA). The collection includes reports from approximately 267 mineral exploration projects carried out between 1971 and 1984 by external mineral exploration companies under grant funding administered by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The Mineral Exploration and Investment Grants Act 1972 was introduced to stimulate mineral exploration in Great Britain through the provision of government grants for exploration targeting non-ferrous metals, fluorspar, barium minerals and potash. The programme contributed to a number of significant mineral discoveries and developments, including the Gairloch copper–zinc–gold deposit, the Parys Mountain copper–lead–zinc deposit and the Hemerdon tungsten–tin deposit. The MEIGA report collection includes geological and exploration data generated during project activities, including geological mapping, soil and stream sediment geochemistry, geophysical survey data, drill core logs and analytical assay data. The reports are held by the British Geological Survey (BGS) on behalf of the former Department of Trade and Industry. All reports are held in hard copy and are available on open file. Associated geological materials collected during the programme are available for viewing through the BGS core store booking process. Spatial information on MEIGA project areas is available through BGS GeoIndex. The scanned reports are available on the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre (CMIC) website (with full text search capability), the National Geoscience Data Centre Deposited Data Search and spatially through the BGS Geoindex.
