The program mapping Alaska's unknown ground expires this year

Vast stretches of Alaska's interior have never been surveyed with modern methods. The federal program that has been closing that gap runs out at the end of this fiscal year.

Since 2019, the U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Mapping Resources Initiative has nearly doubled the publicly available subsurface data covering Alaska's 365 million acres, most of it federally managed.

Two bipartisan bills heard Tuesday by a House Natural Resources subcommittee would extend the program through 2031 and widen its scope to geothermal resources and natural hydrogen. A companion bill would add quantum gravity sensing over at least three priority mineral areas — precise enough to find ore buried beyond the reach of conventional surveys.

Rory Day-Stirrat, president of the Association of American State Geologists, told the subcommittee the program "is working and it deserves reauthorization." He said it subsidizes no company or project, producing public data that state agencies, tribal nations, universities, land managers and industry all use.