Prospectors Research Tools

[Clay Diggins]

Prospector's Research Tools

I haven't been around much this summer and with the desert prospecting season just starting it's a good time to show off what I did this long hot summer. I have been working with a few friends on a new non-profit organization to give you a single place for all your land research.

The result is MyLandMatters.Org. This is the gateway to your land information repository. Maps, books, tutorials, community resources and quality, easy-to-access information about the land around you.

No ads, No memberships, No log-in required.

This past spring while sitting around with some friends we came to the conclusion that most of the important and useful things that we want to know about the land around us was difficult to locate and tough to understand. Despite the many sources of information there was no single place to find the information available.

We decided we could do something about that. We agreed to put our time and energy into creating a single place that anyone could find the answers to questions about the land.

It's a big project. It has taken a lot of work, learning and resources to get things started. But after six months of long days, and more than a few nights, the Land Matters repository is ready for you to use.

Land Matters is all about the land. You can find Land Status Maps, Active Mining Claims Maps (with live direct links into the current LR2000 claims database), A great collection of mining books, Land Laws, Geology books and maps, Forest Travel Plans and a whole lot more.

Land Matters is for land users. Our collections are guided by community input. That's you. Let us know what kind of material you would like to find in our Library or a particular map you would like to see. Help us build Land Matters to best serve the community.

We've already got a lot of things that prospectors have been asking for - the claims maps alone were almost universally requested. Land Matters isn't just for prospectors and miners. But you can help prioritize our efforts and drive the content of Land Matters. Prospectors now have a unique opportunity to help guide and build an information resource designed by prospectors and for prospectors.

We are just getting started filling the Library but there will be hundreds of books, maps and items added in the next few weeks. We've even got a Newsletter so you can get regular updates about new additions to the Land Matters repository.

Check it out and let me know what you think. Here are a few good places to start:

Tutorials - the current focus is on understanding Land Status.
Maps - We all like maps and we've got some you will love.
Library - search for something.

Heavy Pans
Barry & Leigh

 

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[Jeff95531]

“Never let failure discourage you. Every time you get to the base of a mountain (literal or metaphorical), you're presented with a new opportunity to challenge yourself, to push your limits beyond what you thought possible, to learn from climbers on the trail ahead of you, and to take in some amazing views. Your performance on the mountain you climbed last week or last month or last year doesn't matter - because it's all about what you are doing right now.”
― Alison Levine, On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership

You go man!

 

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[SLNugget]

Ok, so some Sections are short of being 1 mile square. Some are short of a mile in the E to W direction and some are short in the N to S direction. So my question is which side of the Section is the discrepancy subtracted from in each case?

 

[Clay Diggins]

Generally the survey starts it's whole quarters from the southeast corner. But some times it's the northeast corner and in a resurvey it could be from a pre designated pin. Generally the start corner will relate to the Meridian directions. Sections North and West of the Meridian and Baseline are more likely to have the survey start in their southeast corner etc. Then you get into mineral and special surveys creating smaller and smaller scattered lots.

I guess what I'm saying Stan is that it varies. Quite a bit in some places.

Not a great answer but I've seen sections split up just about every way possible. You mention undersize but they are oversize sometimes. I've seen sections with 46 quarter quarters and lots.

Much like the rest of land status the facts are the ground are rarely as neat as a perfect grid. Many of the perfect grid areas you do see have not been surveyed at all, it's just a grid on a map.

If you are trying to find the breakdown for a particular Section download the Master Title Plat (MTP) for that township. That should show all the aliquots and lots. Land Matters Land Status Maps have downloadable MTPs right on the map.

We are working on getting downloadable copies of the surveys and notes for those maps too.

Heavy Pans

 

[SLNugget]

Thanks, Barry. The more I learn the less I know. :-(

 

[Clay Diggins]

Thanks, Barry. The more I learn the less I know. :-(

At this point I've learned so much I know nothing.

Heavy Pans

 

[johnedoe]

Generally the survey starts it's whole quarters from the southeast corner. But some times it's the northeast corner and in a resurvey it could be from a pre designated pin. Generally the start corner will relate to the Meridian directions. Sections North and West of the Meridian and Baseline are more likely to have the survey start in their southeast corner etc. Then you get into mineral and special surveys creating smaller and smaller scattered lots.

I guess what I'm saying Stan is that it varies. Quite a bit in some places.

Not a great answer but I've seen sections split up just about every way possible. You mention undersize but they are oversize sometimes. I've seen sections with 46 quarter quarters and lots.

Much like the rest of land status the facts are the ground are rarely as neat as a perfect grid. Many of the perfect grid areas you do see have not been surveyed at all, it's just a grid on a map.

If you are trying to find the breakdown for a particular Section download the Master Title Plat (MTP) for that township. That should show all the aliquots and lots. Land Matters Land Status Maps have downloadable MTPs right on the map.

We are working on getting downloadable copies of the surveys and notes for those maps too.

Heavy Pans

.....
That's what I love...... universal standards of consistency.....

 

[Clay Diggins]

Lay out a 24 mile grid the size of a western state. Converge the North and West lines (northwest corner) of each grid to account for the convergence towards the north pole. So far so good? Not really, compasses are magnetic and so is the earth in many places. Watches can be off by seconds or even minutes in the wild. The stars are only as accurate as your watch and your optics. Scales aren't perfect. Bears, cliffs, brush and dishonest paymasters can all have an effect on the wilderness surveyor. A good portion of Oregon was "surveyed" by thoughts alone in a multi year effort to steal from the federal government. Oregon wasn't the only place in the wild west that dishonest or incompetent surveyors screwed up the survey.

Basically what's on the ground is not what you see on a map. The earth is not flat. Every prospector knows the experience of wondering where the he77 that imaginary line is or how far 1320 feet in a straight line is from this point. Try doing that across an entire nation of wilderness.

The Public Land Survey predates the Constitution. Surveying is a skill. Most surveyors are very skilled and dedicated, others not so much. We live with the actual facts on the ground, not some lines on a map. When a surveyor encountered a cliff or a bear's den he did his best to figure the corner and then moved on. The next surveyor to come along might be 100 years later. By law that second surveyor can't change the location of the original corner, he can only conform his survey to the original.

What is surprising is that almost a third of this huge country has been surveyed. That is an incredible accomplishment. Try walking 50 miles in a straight line anywhere in this country. You can't do it. Now try proving a straight line on the ground for 500 miles across mountain ranges with no support system while carrying delicate and heavy equipment. As hard as thousands of men have tried there are mistakes, discrepancies and errors in the Public Land Survey. I suspect those hardy surveyors would laugh at our complaints about the consistency of that survey.

Heavy Pans

 

[Clay Diggins]

November 1st 2015 Mining Claims Update

The BLM was running a little behind on this claims update. Sunday was the 1st so the updates didn't start becoming available until yesterday afternoon.Two of the file folders were switched around so that had to be sorted out before we could start extracting data from the new databases. I'm guessing there was a Halloween party or two to recover from before the BLM could finish this update.


The Land Matters Claims Advantage bi-monthly reports already went out to the Advantage members. Nevada closed 320 lode claims. Notably there was one 136 year old lode claim closed too. Look around and you will find several other older claims being closed. The big movement for administrative claims closures begins in January but there are still some very interesting changes even now.

The Mining Claims Maps are being updated as I write. They go up to the server one State at a time but they should all be updated within the next hour or so. The biggest changes are in Nevada but check out your favorite areas there could be interesting developments there.

Heavy Pans

 

[goldenIrishman]

Spent last night at our Mohave Prospectors meeting giving out the address to LandMatters so traffic might increase for a bit. A couple of the guys that are more serious about their mining seemed really interested but we've got a lot of weekend warriors and snow birds as well.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Thanks Jeff! I appreciate your efforts!

I hope everyone up in that area benefits from what they find on Land Matters. They should have been getting some good claims up in Gold Basin. When the Fayro's were dropped earlier this year it opened up some of the best ground in the State. 1280 acres right in the middle of the Basin!

Heavy Pans

 

[rockbar]

The Land Matters site is definitely a great resource! The mining claim maps are a valuable tool and I look forward to more info being added to the law library.
Thank you for putting it together. I just clicked around in the area you mention and found many claims with that name. The linked BLM reports showed every claim I clicked on to be active. I have enough claims, I was just curious to see if I could find anything closed out. There's a good chance I didn't look in the proper area.
Anyway, I will consider a membership or perhaps just a donation. I sent you an unrelated PM.

 

[Clay Diggins]

The Land Matters site is definitely a great resource! The mining claim maps are a valuable tool and I look forward to more info being added to the law library.
Thank you for putting it together. I just clicked around in the area you mention and found many claims with that name. The linked BLM reports showed every claim I clicked on to be active. I have enough claims, I was just curious to see if I could find anything closed out. There's a good chance I didn't look in the proper area.
Anyway, I will consider a membership or perhaps just a donation. I sent you an unrelated PM.

Thanks rockbar. It's appreciated. As a volunteer I can tell you user appreciation is priceless.

The Land Matters mining Claims Maps only show active claims rockbar so all the claims links will show as active. If you look in Sections 22,14 and 36 in T29N18W you will see there are nearly 2000 acres now open. Also in T29N17W Section 30. The Fayro claims you see there now are newer (located in 2014) and each has an "A" designation to distinguish them from the original Fayro claims located in 1982.

There is a lot more open ground there if you look around. There is even open ground around the better Bahde claims on the west side of the basin. Lost Basin has new open ground too. It's still out there!

Heavy Pans

 

[goldenIrishman]

Thanks Jeff! I appreciate your efforts!

I hope everyone up in that area benefits from what they find on Land Matters. They should have been getting some good claims up in Gold Basin. When the Fayro's were dropped earlier this year it opened up some of the best ground in the State. 1280 acres right in the middle of the Basin!

Heavy Pans

Yeah... The group has asked for volunteers to go out and sample that area this month to see if they want to grab it up. I'm going to go out for them and test a few spots that are closer to White Elephant Wash. There has also been discussion on dropping a couple of our current claims so the group can afford to pick up some new ground. One of the guys just filed on an area that they were getting about a gram an hour with the drywasher but it's only accessible if you've got a major 4WD at your disposal. There's still a whole bunch of the Fayro claims active as well as the GPAA ones.

 

[bobw53]

The Land Matters Claims Advantage bi-monthly reports already went out to the Advantage members. Nevada closed 320 lode claims. Notably there was one 136 year old lode claim closed too. Look around and you will find several other older claims being closed. The big movement for administrative claims closures begins in January but there are still some very interesting changes even now.

Hey Clay, mind if I ask a question? I ran into this last year between september 30th and the first of the year.. How do you KNOW a claim is closed... Seems the 3 months are like limbo.

Digging around in my area, seems a company blah blah mining company... Which I have traced back previously to an oil and gas exploration company, has not re-upped their paper work
on a bunch of claims.. I'm seeing nothing coming in and filed in September, but they are still "active"... BLM seems rather quick out here. I drop it in the box, 2 days to get there, and on
the 3rd day its online.

Are they actually active, or do I need to tell all my customers to go get bent, then go buy some more PVC pipe and go play in the dirt...

When does a claim officially become "closed" and at what point after sept 30th can you claim it?

 

[SLNugget]

Are you also looking at each claims Serial Register Page? In order to see the complete document you have to click on the PDF button at the top of page. Then you can scroll down to see all pages of the Serial Register Document. It will sometimes shed more light on what is happening with the claim.

 

[Reed Lukens]

[SUP][/SUP]The claims are open until the owner doesn't file the return paperwork that BLM sends out to them. With mine they sent the letter in June the next year, so they don't just close your claim immediately, and it won't always show up if it's in litigation.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Hey Clay, mind if I ask a question? I ran into this last year between september 30th and the first of the year.. How do you KNOW a claim is closed... Seems the 3 months are like limbo.

Digging around in my area, seems a company blah blah mining company... Which I have traced back previously to an oil and gas exploration company, has not re-upped their paper work
on a bunch of claims.. I'm seeing nothing coming in and filed in September, but they are still "active"... BLM seems rather quick out here. I drop it in the box, 2 days to get there, and on
the 3rd day its online.

Are they actually active, or do I need to tell all my customers to go get bent, then go buy some more PVC pipe and go play in the dirt...

When does a claim officially become "closed" and at what point after sept 30th can you claim it?

That's a good question bobw53. The answer is pretty simple but it can become complex.

The simple part of the answer is that a claim is closed on the day it fails to meet the requirements for a mining claim. If there was no annual filing that day would be September 1. If there was a curable defect in the filing the final date will be 30 or 90 days after the claimant was notified of the defect. If there was a small miners in place but no Notice of Intent to Hold or Labor Affidavit filed with the BLM by December 30 the closed date will be December 30. If the claim is in adjudication you will have to wait until the adjudication is final to find out what the closed date will be.

The real question is more about when does the BLM show on the LR2000 that it has closed a claim case file. That answer has nothing to do with real time or the normal sequence of events. The BLM is obligated by their own rules to update the LR2000 within 5 days of any action. I have rarely seen the BLM meet that deadline. It's not unusual to see cases linger in "ACTIVE" status for several years after final action has been taken. 6 months is pretty fast. Sometimes it's only a few weeks. It varies by State and it appears each State has different methods and in house standards.

For example Utah updated their claims status State wide by September 15th this year. California usually runs about 8 months behind and sometimes doesn't even get to the small miners filings until the following August or September. Arizona does it in dribs and drabs by area over several months with a lot of claims left hanging for nine months or more.

So even though the State BLM may drag it's feet when closing case files the closed date goes back to when the claim failed to meet the requirements. Most of the claim cases when they are finally marked "CLOSED" will show September 1 of the year they failed, no matter when the BLM finally got around to updating the files.

In the Land Matters Claims Advantage membership reports we provide a more real time showing of just when a claim file is finally marked "CLOSED". When the BLM finally gets around to marking a claim closed they will not show the date they made that decision but instead will show the date the claim failed to meet the requirements. There is no way to tell from the LR2000 when that actually happened. The Claims Advantage reports compare the contents of the entire BLM database every two weeks. By looking at what changed we can show which claims had their status updated during that two week period. Short of running your own full databases and downloading and updating 12 Gb of files twice a month you won't get that information anywhere else.

Due to the BLM dragging their feet on their case file updates making a claim where there should no longer be a claim can be a crap shoot. If the case is simple lack of filing maintenance fees on time it's a pretty good bet the claim ceased to exist on September 1. If small miners are involved it's best to look closely and watch for filings after the first of the year. If the claim is in adjudication it would be most respectful to allow the claimant to complete their appeal process before claiming.

In any case it's still entirely possible for the BLM to change a CLOSED case file back to ACTIVE without any notice. As such making a claim is always somewhat of a gamble. If you claim over an ACTIVE claim and the claim is not closed you have wasted your time and money. If the claim will eventually be CLOSED as of say September 1 any claim you make there after September 1 will be valid even though the LR2000 status wasn't yet updated.

I generally suggest that if you make a claim in an ACTIVE claim area expect that you could lose your fees and efforts even though you expect the claim should be closed. If you make a claim in a CLOSED claim area but the closure is in adjudication expect that you could lose your fees and efforts. Consider that if a claim is being actively worked the owners have 30 days to relocate a CLOSED claim before anyone else can.

Sometimes if you want a good claim you have to take a little gamble. If you want to make that bet just be really sure you understand the current status of the original claim and the land it encompasses. Understand when the final closure date will be filed as and don't make your claim before that date. And please don't put down fees you can't afford to lose.

Heavy Pans

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well the BLMs dragging of their feet can sure make doing ones due diligence a major pain at times. Even so, (Clay correct me if I'm wrong) once a payment is missed by the claim owner the law states that the land is open once more. No grace period is allowed. If that payment is missed, the miner is required to go all the way back to square one and re-discover and file for the area. If someone beats them to it on the filing with the county then they're out a claim. The County is the end all for actual claim records, not the BLM. So... If a payment is missed and the old owner sends in their money late, the BLM will be more than glad to take it but the claim is invalid anyway because it was never refiled with the county. This could lead to some messy situations to say the least.

I've been looking at an area that had been claimed back in 1998 by a company from back east with eight partners. Seven of the partners bailed out and relinquished their interest five months later in 1999. (I still get the feeling that someone was running some kind of scam but I've come to realize that this could be one of several types of scams.) The laws state that the claims must be refiled to reflect the change in size from 160 acres back down to 20. Well BLM just got that all figured out and now the LR2000 reflects the changes. It only took them about 15-16 YEARS to get it all straightened out. In the meantime, all that land that should have been open was tied up and appeared to be claimed so others couldn't prospect on it.

Most of us do our best to keep things legal and not to run around stepping on the toes of our fellow miners. The backlog at BLM sometimes makes it hard for an honest miner to know what ground is actually open and which is legally claimed.

 

[goldenIrishman]

LOL... Seems we are on the same wavelength this morning Clay. You beat me by a minute on the posts.

 

[rockbar]

Here's a small clarification I will add, based on my understanding of the process and the scenario.
I promise I will learn how to use the quote feature. I'm old school cut and paste'r.
When you say that the "miner is required to go all the way back to square one and re-discover and file for the area", you are correct except that the existing discovery on the claim which was voided and closed may be used once again, even if it's not yet well defined nor determined to be valid by the BLM.
The claim simply needs to be relocated by the locator or by the new locator that comes along and takes advantage of the opportunity. All proper filings and fees are repeated to make the location.
The existing discovery location monument as well as all existing corner markers may also be re-used once again.

There is also an exemption to the acreage reduction you refer to, which BLM clerks won't tell you about. Again from above, "The laws state that the claims must be refiled to reflect the change in size from 160 acres back down to 20". That's generally the case. However, directly from the BLM website...

"You may transfer, sell, or otherwise convey an association placer mining claim at any time to an equal or greater number of mining claimants. If you want to transfer an association placer claim to an individual or an association that is smaller in number than the association that located the claim you: a) must have discovered a valuable mineral deposit before the transfer; or b) upon notice from BLM, you must reduce the acreage of the claim, if necessary, so that you meet the 20-acre per locator limit. Per 43 CFR 3830.5, a discovery means that you have found a valuable mineral deposit. Any association placer claim transferred that does not meet these requirements is not a valid mining claim."

I'm still unclear how a corporation comes into play with this exception and perhaps they are only allowed to have their claims held in 20 acre increments.