Sept. 7, 2010, 3:16 p.m. EDT

By Sue Chang, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- With more than 1,500 deals reported so far in 2010, this is shaping up to be a banner year for mining mergers and acquisitions, as companies in the sector seek more resources, according to data Tuesday from Dealogic.

As of August, 1,591 deals have been announced, a record count for the sector.

"Volume of $95.1 billion is the third highest year-to-date volume on record as there have been no deals over $10 billion," said the data provider.

In June, July and August, 564 deals valued at $36.8 billion were announced, the highest number on record for the three-month period, Dealogic said.

Commodities-rich Australia headed the list of most-targeted nations with $27.9 billion so far this year, followed by Canada at $17 billion and China at $14.3 billion.

Some notable recent deals include the $39 billion hostile bid by Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton /quotes/nls/bhp (BHP 69.72, -1.08, -1.53%) for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. /quotes/comstock/11t!pot (CA:POT 156.60, 0.00, 0.00%) and Goldcorp Inc.'s /quotes/comstock/13*!gg/quotes/nls/gg (GG 42.28, -0.56, -1.31%) $3.4 billion bid for Andean Resources Ltd. /quotes/comstock/11t!and (CA:AND 6.39, 0.00, 0.00%) .

Morgan Stanley /quotes/comstock/13*!ms/quotes/nls/ms (MS 25.67, -0.99, -3.71%) was the most active adviser for such deals, with $16.1 billion, followed by BMO Capital Markets, a unit of BMO Financial Group /quotes/comstock/13*!bmo/quotes/nls/bmo (BMO 56.43, -0.92, -1.60%) , with $15 billion and CIBC World Markets with $13.1 billion.

Sue Chang is a MarketWatch reporter in San Francisco.