The highest confidence resource category, supporting detailed production planning.
A mineral resource for which quantity, grade, densities, shape, and physical characteristics are estimated with confidence sufficient for the appropriate application of technical and economic parameters to support production planning. This is the highest level of geological confidence in resource estimation.
Measured material carries the least geological risk and is what converts to proven reserves. In practice it is concentrated in the parts of a deposit that will be mined first, which is exactly where estimation errors would hurt most.
Producers and near-producers carry measured resources; grassroots explorers essentially never do. Its presence tells you roughly where a company sits on the development curve without reading anything else.