Low-level airplane flights are scheduled to begin in early October over eastern California and a sliver of western Nevada. These flights are part of a collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Earth Mapping Resources Initiative and the California Geological Survey (CGS), aimed at imaging geology using airborne geophysical technology.
The survey will target critical minerals, energy resources, and earthquake hazards. Flights will be based out of the Bishop and Lone Pine airports, covering areas in Fresno, Inyo, and Mono counties in California, as well as Esmeralda and Mineral counties in Nevada.
The airborne survey will utilize AS350 helicopters equipped with an elongated “stinger” extending from the cabin or skids. This stinger houses sensors designed to collect magnetic and radiometric data. These scientific instruments are entirely passive, meaning they produce no emissions that could pose a risk to humans, animals, or plant life. No photography or video data will be collected during the flights. The aircraft will be operated by experienced pilots specially trained and approved for low-level flying, working in coordination with the FAA to ensure safe operations in accordance with U.S. law. All surveys will be conducted during daylight hours only, with flight lines spaced 660 feet (200 meters) apart at a low altitude of 330 feet (100 meters). The USGS has contracted NRG Exploration USA Inc. and Woolpert to carry out the data collection.
This initiative is part of the broader USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, which seeks to modernize the nation’s maps of geology and mineral resources, and to identify energy and groundwater resources and natural hazards. Jamey Jones, science coordinator for the USGS’s Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, noted that such partnerships with state surveys are crucial for national goals, including mapping critical minerals, “adding to state knowledge crucial to water resources, hazards and the resource economy.” The California State Geologist and Director of the California Geological Survey, Jeremy Lancaster, stated that these datasets represent a coordinated federal-state partnership to gather modern data in priority regions, make it publicly available, and substantially improve the understanding of California’s geology. He described this 2026 airborne geophysical survey as significant in scale and focused on an area of interest for several years.
The survey area encompasses a portion of eastern California situated on the western edge of the Great Basin, a region known for its diverse range of mineral deposits. This includes historic sites such as the Pine Creek mine near Bishop, which was the largest historic producer of tungsten in the U.S. The areas covered by the survey still hold significant potential for future exploration and production of critical minerals and related commodities. These potential resources include antimony, copper, gallium, germanium, graphite, indium, lithium, molybdenum, silver, tellurium, tin, tungsten, and zinc, among others.
Beyond mineral exploration, the new high-resolution geophysical surveys will provide foundational geological data crucial for assessing geothermal energy potential. The data will also contribute significantly to understanding and evaluating volcano and seismic hazards in key local areas, including the Long Valley caldera, the eastern Sierra Nevada range front, and within the Owens Valley.
This airborne geophysical survey is one component of the Earth MRI, which also includes geochemical reconnaissance surveys, topographic mapping using LiDAR technology, hyperspectral surveys, and various geologic mapping projects. All data collected through this initiative will be made freely available to the public via the USGS ScienceBase website.
