BRGM InfoTerre (French Geological Survey Open Data Portal)

History and Founding

InfoTerre is the web portal for access to the geoscientific data of the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM), France's national geological survey. BRGM was officially founded on 23 October 1959 by merging several precursor French geological and mining research organizations (Bumifom, BRGGM, BRMA, and BMG). The origins of French geological data collection trace back to 1746 with the first mineralogical map of France by Jean-Étienne Guettard, and the first formal geological mapping service was established in 1868. InfoTerre was developed by BRGM as part of its open data and open science commitment, providing free online access to geoscientific data in conformity with the EU INSPIRE Directive and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) interoperability standards.

Collections and Holdings

InfoTerre provides free access to a broad range of BRGM's geoscientific datasets:

• Geological maps of France at scales from 1:50,000 to 1:1,000,000
• The Banque de données du Sous-Sol (BSS, Subsoil Database) — borehole logs and subsurface data
• Natural hazard and industrial risk maps
• Groundwater data
• Polluted sites and soils data (developed in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment)
• Historical earthquake data via SisFrance

BRGM makes geological maps of all mainland French départements at 1:50,000 scale available for free download from InfoTerre, in line with its Open Data and Open Science commitments. As France's national geological survey, BRGM employs over 1,000 people, including more than 700 engineers and researchers, at 27 regional branches across metropolitan France and overseas territories.

Access and Usage

InfoTerre is freely accessible at infoterre.brgm.fr. The portal uses a map-based viewer (Visualiseur InfoTerre) and complies with OGC standards, making data interoperable with GIS platforms. BRGM also offers a mobile app version (i-InfoTerre). Users can search for geological reports, download maps, and query subsurface data without registration for most datasets.