The Document Archives

The collection consists of hundreds of thousands of documents collected over a period of more than a hundred years, and new materials are being added regularly.

Visiting the Document Archives

Access to the archives is granted only in the company of a member of staff.

The staff can help with, among other things:

• Searching databases for references, such as exploration reports and scientific reports.
• Searching databases and archives for geological maps, ground geophysics data, geochemical data, blocks/hand samples and drill cores.
• Loaning or copying material and information.
• Scanning of physical materials/analog data from the archives can be delivered upon request in various digital formats.

Exploration reports

The archives at the Mineral Resources Information Office contain over 8 000 exploration/prospecting reports. The reports are registered in a database and are searchable by, for example, map sheet, keyword and object name.

The exploration/prospecting reports are an excellent way to find out what research has been done in a particular area. Digital data from the investigations are sometimes also available.

Most of the reports are in Swedish. Many of the reports are now scanned and available in PDF format.

Visitors can search and download exploration reports in the web-based, interactive search engine Geolagret.

Search and download from the Geolagret search engine (new window)

Geological maps and data

The Mineral Resources Information Office in Malå has access to a part of SGU's geological materials, including the data underlying published maps. There is also a large amount of geological, geophysical and geochemical map material produced by entities other than SGU. The maps range from regional scale to detailed maps of individual objects and areas.

Most of the material is unpublished and much of it is working material, for example hand-drawn maps. A large portion of the material is digitized, but we can scan material that is not available digitally upon request.

The maps are sorted by map sheet and by information type:

• Bedrock geology
• Soil geology
• Geochemistry
• Geophysics
• Permit staking system

New material from the Mining Inspectorate of Sweden (Bergsstaten)

New material is received regularly by the Mineral Resources Information Office from the Mining Inspectorate of Sweden, the decision-making body tasked with handling matters concerning exploration and extraction of minerals.

Since 1998, when an exploration permit is granted, the law requires that exploration activities and digital data are reported to the mining inspectorate. After a confidentiality period of a maximum of four years, the material becomes publicly available and archived at the Mineral Resources Information Office.

The Mineral Resources Information Office has also field notes, both from base mapping/surveying and from exploration-oriented mapping. In addition, there are about 1 500 publications on Swedish geology and mineral deposits in several languages.