Collections
Records Center
The IGWS Records Center is the permanent archive for reports, maps, images, and publications related to Indiana's hazards and energy, mineral, and water resources. It is being relocated.
The facility was renovated in 2022-2023 with support from the U.S. Geological Survey National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program and the Indiana University Office of the Vice Provost for Research. When the facility opens, it will contain:
- Approximately 264,000 paper records documenting the physical properties of rocks within the subsurface of Indiana
- These well logs contain continuous, in-situ data needed for groundwater, industrial, environmental, and energy resource investigations.
- Maps published by the Indiana Geological and Water Survey and its predecessors prior to 2019
- Hundreds of unpublished work maps with scientists' handwritten field observations
- Approximately 4,000 maps related to Indiana coal mining and geology
- These maps represent nearly 100 years of geological investigations in Indiana and document locations that may no longer exist for public access.
- Approximately 200 field notebooks of Survey staff dating to the late 19th century
- These notebooks contain measurements, sketches, and direct observations from field investigations across the state.
- Reports, bulletins, circulars, and studies published by the Indiana Geological and Water Survey and its predecessors prior to 2019
- These publications were self-published by the Survey prior to the creation of the online, open-access Indiana Journal of Earth Sciences.
- More than 25,000 black-and-white architectural photographs of buildings constructed of Indiana limestone
- This collection is on a long-term loan from the Indiana Limestone Company, now Polycore, Inc.
- Approximately 40,000 black-and-white aerial photographs from the 1930s to 1970s from all 92 Indiana counties
- These photographs document land use changes in Indiana during the mid-20th century.
Digital surrogates of many of the materials in the Records Center are available online in our Digital Collections portal. Materials can be downloaded for personal, noncommercial use. To request commercial use of an IGWS photograph, document, video, audio file, or 3D resource, please email us.