Abstract
The mindat.org website (Mindat) has been popular among millions of users for many years. Its special focus is on mineral species and their distributions, and in recent years it has also incorporated a list of other data subjects, such as rocks, meteorites, fossils, and base geologic maps. Along the years, Mindat has been used in a variety of research projects and educational programs in geosciences. To allow the data to be used more widely, Mindat has been implementing several extensions and updates to its framework towards the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) principles for open data. Solid progress has been achieved on data cleansing and a machine-readable interface for data access. Recent data-driven discoveries in multiple geoscience disciplines also prove the utility of the Mindat open data. This presentation describes the datasets available on Mindat, their origins, their methodologies, and the characteristics and limits of these datasets that needs to be understood by anyone using them. We hope this introduction can offer a quick overview of the Mindat open data and help users better plan their applications, and we also welcome more users to contribute data to Mindat.