Map of BGS BritPits showing the distribution of worked mineral commodities across the country
BGS’s data scientists have generated a summary map of the most commonly extracted mineral commodities by local authority area, demonstrating the diverse nature of British mineral resources.
18/02/2026 By BGS Press
The BGS BritPits dataset contains more than 264 000 records of onshore mineral workings located in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The data includes active, inactive, dormant and ceased sites, as well as a range of mineral operations including mines, quarries and onshore oil and gas fields, together with wharfs and rail depots handling mineral products and industrial processes. Each record describes an onshore mineral working in terms of its name, operational status, geographical location, Mineral Planning Authority (MPA), operator, geology, worked mineral commodity and a range of relevant metadata.
An analysis of the major commodities extracted from known pits per local authority region. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under Open Government Licence v 3.0. Constains OS data (c) Crown copyright and database right 2024
Three levels of BGS BritPits data are available. The open-source index is based on the full BritPits dataset but contains index level information only, including the name, status and location of the working. This can be accessed as a Web Map Service (WMS) layer or via the BGS Onshore GeoIndex. The other two levels are available as licensed datasets.
- The open-source index package is available under an Open Government Licence
- The full dataset includes all the entries of the BGS BritPits database, including historic sites; this data is also available for specific Mineral Planning Areas
- A subset of the full dataset that contains only the active, inactive and dormant mines and quarries (over 5200 entries)
These datasets are updated every year. The latest version, released in February 2026, contains 264 549 records, an increase from 262 814 records in the previous version.
This data will be of use to organisations in the public and private sector who have an interest in the location of mineral extraction sites and their possible after-use. For example, the data has been supplied to:
- national and local governments for use in planning and statistical studies
- non-governmental organisations for environmental and conservation planning
- commercial organisations for analysis of resource potential and legacy operations