What can I mine on a mineral claim.

[605dano]

I was wondering what minerals can be mined on a mineral claim. Could you mine quartz, marble, or decorative rocks. How about phosphorus, black sand, or green sand. Can I mine old tailing piles and screen out the gravel and sell it? What are the limitations?

 

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[Clay Diggins]

You can only mine valuable minerals. Stone, rock, gravel, sand, marble, building stone, ornamental rock, oil, gas, coal, helium and phosphorus are all part of the lease/sale resources and do not belong to the mining claimant.

If you mine and remove anything but valuable minerals under the mining act you will be charged with mineral theft when it is discovered. If you want to mine and sell other minerals you can obtain a lease or sale contract with the surface management agency.

Federal prosecutions for resource theft are a real thing. Even private landowners that don't have mineral rights are prosecuted for selling sand and gravel from their property. Very common are federal government lease/sale contracts for the non-locatable, energy and reserved minerals.

You can claim mine dumps as placer deposits but check with your state laws as to when mine dumps are open to location. Some states require the dump be abandoned for a specific period of time before it can be claimed.

You can not screen and sell gravel from a mine dump based on a mining claim. Gravel is a lease/sale resource, not a valuable mineral.

Tailings dumps can be claimed also if you can prove there is a commercial quantity of valuable minerals that are recoverable in the tailings - unlikely but if you want to waste your time feel free to poke around in the tailings too. There is no gravel in a tailings dump.

Heavy Pans

 

[605dano]

Ok, but in the past here there have been mining claims on pegmatite that were mining mica, feldspar and other minerals. Are they kosher?

 

[ratled]

You probably get a a sand and gravel permit fairly ez these days. Many of these have been known to have a sluice somewhere in the process for who knows what.......

 

[Clay Diggins]

The laws that govern what is considered a "valuable mineral" subject to location under the mining grant has changed through time. Minerals removed from mining claim location have included coal (1873), oil & gas (1911), geothermal resources, potash, sodium, sulphur, native asphalt, salts, solid and semisolid bitumen, bituminous rock, phosphate and building stone (1920), sand, gravel, stone, pumice, pumicite, and cinders (1955).

Things like feldspar are only valuable for their component minerals (potassium) so the claim is based on the valuable mineral - not the feldspar. Potassium (Potash) today is no longer a locatable mineral.

Mica is not, in itself, rare or valuable. It's a very common silicate mineral. The only reason a mica deposit would be a valuable mineral deposit is if there were some particular market for a unique deposit of Mica. At one time there was a specialty market that paid a premium for large sheets of high purity Mica crystals. Those sheets were used for electrical insulation on high power devices and switches. For many years the entire power grid required this rare form of Mica, today we have many man made insulating substitutes for Mica. Mica is no longer a valuable mineral commercially so no Mica based mining claims are possible even though Mica is a locatable mineral. If a particular Mica deposit becomes valuable in a future world a mining claim could be located for that rare Mica deposit.

Claims for these non-locatable minerals made before these laws were passed are still valid today if all the maintenance fees and records have been kept up to date. For instance a mining claim located before 1955 and still valid has a right to use the surface resources like sand and gravel for mine workings or to take offsite. Pre 1955 mining claims have a right to occupancy unlike post 1955 mining claims.

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[605dano]

If the claim is for a valuable mineral can you sell other minerals or specimens that are valuable but have been withdrawn from claiming? Like for instance selling oxides from from mine dump for solar flow battery. Or selling talc from gold mining? Just some examples off the top of my head.

 

[Clay Diggins]

If the claim is for a valuable mineral can you sell other minerals or specimens that are valuable but have been withdrawn from claiming? Like for instance selling oxides from from mine dump for solar flow battery. Or selling talc from gold mining? Just some examples off the top of my head.

The brief answer is no. The mining claimant owns all of the valuable minerals found on their claim. If there is a deposit of valuable minerals that could cause a prudent man to believe a reasonable profit could be had by mining the valuable mineral deposit then the mining claim has a basis in law.

It works like this, if the mining claim is based on a valuable gold deposit the claimant can keep and sell all the locatable minerals associated with their discovery. While mining gold it is not unusual to mine a significant portion of copper, silver, zinc, lead, fluorite, tin, molybdenum, tungsten or other locatable minerals. All those valuable minerals belong to the claimant even though the claim's validity is based on the gold deposit.

If there are significant portions of the deposit that consists of the non locatable minerals they must be consumed as part of the ore refining or left on the waste pile. Non locatable minerals such as quartz etc. are useful in some smelting processes, iron and sulfur is usually converted to waste mineral on the heap. Smart miners understand that a gold deposit with high grade quartz and fluorite will produce better smelter receipts than ore without those refractory materials. Even though quartz is not a locatable mineral a certain amount of the quartz can be used as an often needed flux additive. Quartz is not a salable end product but it is useful in refining ore.

The exception in your example is Talc which is a locatable mineral. Oxides and sulfides of valuable minerals are also subject to location. Essentially if you can prove that a mineral deposit is valuable and not one of the withdrawn or reserved minerals you can make a mining claim based on that deposit.

All of this revolves around provable real value in the market. Just finding gold in a stream does not prove a valuable mineral deposit but it may be enough evidence to justify making a mining location and exploring for a valuable deposit.

Here is a real world example to bring these concepts of locatable and valuable together. All this stuff actually happened but I'm giving you the brief readers digest version here:

A guy discovers a deposit of really nice pumice in New Mexico. He claims the pumice deposit and begins selling the pumice he mines. Pumice is reserved for sale by the United States so the BLM declares the claim invalid.

The guy with the pumice deposit is not happy with the decision because he is really cleaning up on pumice sales. The reason he's making so much money selling this particular pumice is because it's the finest pumice in the world for making stone washed jeans. The jean makers pay big bucks for this particular pumice because they get a nice even finish with minimal loss. Good stuff for that popular stone washed look.

The claimant appeals the BLM decision to close the claim and wins because he can prove that his particular deposit of pumice is unique and valuable. Big win right? As you can see if the pumice deposit wasn't proven unique and valuable the claim closure would have been confirmed.

The pumice location goes into high gear supplying the jean makers with this special pumice. A couple of times the Forest Service complains that some of the deposit isn't jean grade and is still being sold. Remember ordinary pumice is a salable mineral not a locatable mineral. Every time the claim owner sells pumice that might be a little lower grade than his stone washed standard he gets a bill from the Forest Service for the non-locatable minerals he sold. Lots of niggling in there about finished pumice size and grade. Not fun but probably sorta kind of fair.

The Forest Service really wants to get rid of the pumice claims so they declare a mineral withdrawal. They know that the pumice claims will be challenged again. After much haggling and hearings the pumice claims pass the mineral exam so the pumice mining continues. The pumice owner is happy so what could go wrong?

To make a long story much shorter the jean companies come up with a much cheaper system for the stone washed jean look that doesn't require this unique pumice. The pumice deposit is still rare and unique but the commercial value is virtually nil. The claims are now based on a common non locatable mineral and are closed. End of story except for the last bill sent by the Forest Service for the salable common mineral pumice that was mined and processed after the the jean companies stopped buying.

Claimants own all the valuable minerals on their claim. They don't own any of the common or reserved minerals. Selling common or reserved minerals from the public lands without a permit or contract is mineral theft. Selling common minerals from a mining claim will get you billed for the value of the minerals as well as a citation for mineral theft. If you want to sell common minerals just get a contract with the management agency and pay the fees. As ratled pointed out it's a pretty simple process.

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[605dano]

Very interesting. Thanks for the info.