USGS Global Fiducials

The Global Fiducials Library (GFL) is a long-term archive of images from U.S. National Imagery Systems which represents a long-term periodic record for selected scientifically important sites. The GFL was created to be the collection, archive and data management component of the Global Fiducials Program.

The Global Fiducials Program is a collaborative effort between Federal Civil Agencies, Academia, and the Intelligence Community. The principal goal of the Global Fiducials Program was to build and maintain a long-term record of data to support scientists and policy makers involved in that collaborative effort. At the inception of the Program, it was hoped that at some point - perhaps as much as twenty-five years into the future - the acquired data could be openly released to support future scientists and policy makers as well. Since the 1990s, the Global Fiducials Program has been periodically collecting images of environmentally significant sites around the world.

The GFL, which is the archive that maintains this long-term imagery record, is managed by the U.S. Geological Survey under the National Civil Applications Program, in partnership with the Civil Applications Committee