The collection covers a wide range of recent and historical images dating back to the 1890s. Collection strengths are field geology of the UK, early mining and quarrying and an increasing number of historical photographs, the originals of which are from the NGDC archive. The collection also covers rocks, thin sections, fossils and Scottish building stones, the latter including hand specimens and buildings.

The low resolution thumbnail images accompanying each record are derived from very high resolution images, either digital images or scans from high quality, large format and 35 mm negatives and transparencies.

A wide range of photographic and digital products and services are available from BGS, contact the Photographic Unit for details.