Mining Claims: How to Check Them Before You Prospect
Verdict summary
A mining claim is a right to the minerals on a parcel of US federal land, located under the General Mining Law of 1872 and recorded with the Bureau of Land Management. Before you prospect, find out whether the ground is claimed: if it is, the minerals belong to the claimant. Claims are described by township, range and section, which you can turn into a map location.
Kinds of claims.
Lode claims cover veins and deposits in rock; placer claims cover loose deposits such as gold-bearing gravel; mill sites and tunnel sites support mining operations. Claims must be maintained each year or they lapse, and closed claims are part of the historical record.
Reading a legal description.
US federal land is surveyed in townships and ranges six miles square, divided into 36 sections of about one square mile. A description such as T7S R22E Sec 8 pins a claim to a one-square-mile block, and quarter-section notes narrow it further. PinPoint Treasure converts these descriptions to a map location and back.
Old claims as treasure records.
Historic claims, patents and survey plats show where people worked, camped and built a century ago. Patented claims became private land; their survey plats often show cabins, shafts and roads that are useful for history research and for knowing whose land it is now.
How PinPoint Treasure helps.
Ask PinPoint Treasure about a specific place or story and it researches the records for you: newspapers, land and mining records, old maps, LiDAR and land status, with the source behind every claim.
Can I prospect on someone else's mining claim? No. The claimant holds the mineral rights. You may be able to cross or recreate on the public land, but prospecting or removing minerals from an active claim needs the claimant's permission.
How do I find mining claims on a map? Use the Bureau of Land Management claim records for the township, range and section, then convert the legal description to a map location.
What does T, R and Sec mean? Township, Range and Section from the US Public Land Survey System: a township is six miles square and holds 36 sections of about one square mile each.