The Tellus survey is a national programme to gather geochemical and geophysical data across Ireland – in other words, to examine the chemical and physical properties of our soil, rocks and water.
Tellus is undertaken by Geological Survey Ireland and is funded by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications. All data from Tellus is made available free of charge online.
Tellus involves two types of surveying – airborne geophysical surveying using a low-flying aircraft and ground-based geochemical surveying of soil, stream water and stream sediment.
Tellus has established a Product Development workstream in order to produce more focused, user-centric data products, the need for which has been identified through stakeholder consultation, independent reviews of Tellus and government policy. Product development is undertaken under five main themes: mineral prospectivity, smart agriculture, environment and health, climate action and education.
To date, Tellus surveying has been completed in Northern Ireland (2004–2008) and the border region of Ireland (2011–2013). Tellus airborne surveying has been completed in the north midlands region of Ireland (2014–2015), the eastern midlands region (2015), the west of Ireland (2016–2017) across counties Limerick, north Tipperary and west Cork (2018–2019) and most recently in south east Ireland (2019). The Tellus airborne geophysical survey has now mapped 75% of the country.
The latest phase of the survey will see the aircraft flying from September 2020, until the end of the year (weather permitting) over Counties Laois, Kilkenny, Tipperary and Waterford, and neighbouring parts of Kildare, Carlow, Offaly and Cork.
Our website is updated weekly with the planned flight schedule, you can view the weekly flight plan here.
