Mapping the yearly extent of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia using Landsat and Google Earth Engine — Yearly Mining Areas (simplified KML)

These data accompany the 2018 manuscript published in PLOS One titled "Mapping the yearly extent of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia using Landsat and Google Earth Engine". In this manuscript, researchers used the Google Earth Engine platform and freely-accessible Landsat imagery to create a yearly dataset (1985 through 2015) of surface coal mining in the Appalachian region of the United States of America. This specific dataset is a collection of "simplified" KML files (ideal for visualization but not data analysis) of the mining areas as determined by this study for each year from 1985 through 2015. Individual file names within the dataset indicate the specific year. These files show the mining “footprint” in Appalachia for that given year, indicating that mining was occurring in a given location during that year. These files do not, however, indicate the year at which mining began or ceased in any given location.