The graduate student Yadira Soto Viruet participated in a summer internship with the US Geological Survey in Reston, VA. She worked for the Minerals Information Team (MIT) that annually reports on the minerals facilities of more than 180 countries. MIT collects and analyze information on mineral facilities showing the production of metals, industrial minerals and fuel minerals. The work was to create a database using the Structural Table of Mineral Industry, which includes the location of main mineral commodity sites for two regions; Africa and Middle East and Commonwealth of Independent States. The mineral facilities database included mines, plants, location, commodity, company information, annual production capacity. The collected data were incorporated into Geographic Information System (GIS) using ArcGIS software to produce a map showing the mineral facilities. The database and maps assist in the analysis of availability and trade of mineral commodities for the U.S. economy. Also serve for the estimation of future production for different commodities from individual countries, regions and the world’s global market; and show the distribution of resources. The maps will be used to complete a world-wide project that shows the mining and production of mineral commodities globally.
