BGS to release more open data...by Gerry Wildman

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OpenGeoscience: Understand more about the geology of the UK

BGS is committed to releasing as much information as possible as ‘open’. For us this means that anyone can use and re-use data for free under the terms of the Open Government Licence. As with many other open data providers, all we ask is that any use of BGS data is acknowledged as such. We hope that by releasing information as ‘open’ we can encourage wider use, and that more people learn about the geology of the UK and it’s impacts on our lives, as well as to stimulate innovation and encourage the creation of products and services.

The BGS OpenGeoscience website. 
Since 2009 our platform for releasing data has been through ‘OpenGeoscience’. OpenGeoscience includes a variety of free to view/download resources including; access to 1:50 000 scale geological data, over a million boreholes logs, scanned versions of its map catalogue, access to our vast photo library and a host of web services and applications.

So far, OpenGeoscience has been a huge success. We’ve had 250,000 downloads of our iGeology smartphone app, have jumped from delivering just a few thousand borehole scans, to over 1 million a year and see around 450,000 hits to our 1: 50,000 scale web map service each month. However, we want to go even further and have been working on a host of new open products and services for 2017. Highlights include:
  • Ability to view the full text from a wide range of BGS publications, including our memoirs and regional guides.
  • Downloadable, coarse-scale versions of our popular hazard datasets for Great Britain: GeoSure subsidence models and mining hazard (not including coal).
  • Open versions of our environmental chemistry GBASE data for the UK and the thickness of superficial deposits model for Great Britain.
  • Summary information and locations of landslides in Great Britain.
If you are unable to find what you’re looking for in OpenGeoscience, it may still fall under our commercial services. BGS reinvests the income from our chargeable services into maintaining both our commercial and open products. This sustainable business model helps us to continue to provide free access to our wide collection of geological data and information.

A selection of what is available on OpenGeoscience. From L-R: BGS Geology 625k,  G-BASE geochemical data and
offshore geochemistry.
We’re always keen for you to share your open data requests and stories with us. Contact us at digitaldata@bgs.ac.uk or follow us on twitter @BGSdata.


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