Last year, we showed you a feature from Gold Maps Online that helped you find areas that were currently being mined. It had some interesting and potentially useful maps, though they charge for access.
Now we’ve been introduced to a company called MineCache. MineCache takes the raw data from the USGS MRDS (United States Geological Survey, Mineral Resource Data System), cleans out the non-applicable items (other minerals, etc), and then presents it in the form of a very nice network link.
The site typically requires that a user register for an account before they can use the files, so that users can post photos and comments. However, for those of you simply wanting to poke around and play with it, they’ve created a special KML file
to let you try it out.The only problem I had is that I didn’t know where to look. I’d zoom around and it would always say “No gold mines here”. I suppose this wouldn’t be a problem for people that are genuinely needing a tool like this, but it was a bit frustrating for me. If you have the same problem, just fly to this KML file
with their network link active and you should see a few.If you’re the kind of user that is interested in this type of tool, do you find this more useful than the “Gold Maps Online” we showcased before? Why or why not?
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
Search for Idaho Springs, Colorado. You’ll see hundreds of gold mines in the immediate area.
I have found that MineCache to be totally useless. It does not show the location of the claims and alot of them are shown in the wrong place. If you compare it with the maps of the claims it does not match. You can not tell if a location is claimed or not. Total waste of money to purchase. The only way to find out for sure if you are an active claim it to go to BLM and look at their maps.