Texas Resources

Although Texas ranks as one of the nation’s top producers for oil, gas, and industrial minerals, the state’s critical mineral potential remains largely untapped. The Bureau, in its role as the State Geological Survey, is leading efforts to understand the critical mineral and industrial minerals potential of Texas through The Texas Imperative. 

The Texas Imperative is a set of focused multi-disciplinary studies of vital state resources including water, critical minerals, naturally occurring helium and hydrogen, and geothermal energy. The goal of The Texas Imperative is to inform state and local leaders, state agencies, industry, and the public about the location, quantity, and potential economic and environmental impact of these resources.

The Economic Mineral Resources Program

The goal of the Economic Mineral Resources Program is to provide information on mineral resources in Texas through a Report of Investigations (RI) and an online GIS-based database and map portal. The RI will serve as an introduction and backdrop to mineral resource topics and provide detailed geologic, mine and quarry location, and production information for specific resources up to the publication date. It will include sections on regulation, economic viability, and socio-environmental-economic impacts of mining, together with a section on new resource opportunities and their implications. The information is designed for stakeholders in government, the private sector, the general public, and academia. The database portal allows multiple parameters to be viewed together, and data may be downloaded. The scope of the project includes all industrial minerals and aggregates, critical minerals, uranium, as well as lithium from brines and rare earth elements from coal mining and processing waste.

For more information, please contact Research Associate Professor Brent Elliott.