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Renewed My Land Matters Advantage Membership


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From the Land Matters website:

"The founders of Land Matters, while working with the public on land related issues, land status, access, law, ownership etc, recognized a public need for quality information.

While interacting with the community of land users, it was clear that people seeking information were having difficulty locating quality, reliable information. There were many common questions asked. But no common place where people could be referred to for answers and research.

This was the beginning of Land Matters. From there we have widened our mission to include information for all land related matters. From recreation to agriculture, land status to land law, from geology to soil science, Land Matters was created to provide a place to explore and understand the land around you."

I admit I have not scratched the surface of what is available on the Land Matters website. I am always focused just on finding what I need when I need it, and little else. The main thing of value on the website for most people here is the mining claims mapping system. I have a screen shot of the page below to give you an idea of the information available. There is one very important line that applies to mapping systems based on BLM LR2000

"The mining claims represented on these maps are only displayed to the nearest section and DO NOT display the actual claim location. Sections are about one square mile and actual mining claim locations can vary considerably from their mapped location."

I use the system for to determine a few basic facts. First, where are people staking claims for gold? That area might be worth prospecting in. Second, which sections have claims that should be avoided or which require more research at the recording office? Most important to me, what are the closest sections that are shown to be free of claims? That section might be worth a wander with a detector.

The use of the website is free, but there are a couple membership options; Supporting Membership for $35 a year, or Claims Advantage Membership for $100 a year. You can read about membership benefits here. I am an Advantage Member and just renewed for another year.

I know prospectors and miners pretty well, and most of us, put in the best light, would be called "extremely frugal". I have seen guys spend two months using oddball parts to build something they could buy commercially because they figured it saved them $20. We all work hard for our money - I get that.

I therefore understand when most people just prefer to use something for free if they can. All I can do is say that if you check out the Land Matters website, and end up using it very much at all, consider joining at one of the membership levels, or just making a small donation using the Donate button on the website. I think what they are doing is valuable and worth supporting. Thank you.

lands-matters-mining-claims-page.jpg

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Land matters is one of the best investment I've made.  I have a library full of prospecting books and vedios.  Membership in some prospecting clubs along with some researching the land matter maps, makes my prospecting trips from Hawaii a more enjoyable one.  It's a great feeling knowing you're not claim jumping an respecting the land and the land owners.  

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Hi, Steve.  Is Land Matters aware of or do they care about the 3.3 million acres of public/BLM land that Congress intends to sell to private interests?  The majority of the land is in Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Arizona, although six other western states are impacted as well. I'm wondering to what extent this will impact prospectors since I understand that some of the BLM land out west is open to detecting.

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Land Matters is not a political lobby group or political organization, though they of course they keep up on land issues. I suggest you contact them via their website and ask. Or perhaps an answer will be forthcoming here in time.

You can find their newsletter archive here.

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They are a very few - amazing people - who have decided to dedicate - without compensation - their hard work and talent to making a vast amount of information - which is in the public domain – a lot of which was paid for with our hard-earned taxpayer money _ available to anyone who cares to visit their website – free of charge.

 Nice folks who deserve your support!

 They have ambitions to bring much more to the public – in order to do that they will need support.

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Great post Steve. Barry, of Land Matters, is the most knowledgeable person I'm acquainted with on land ownership, mining claims and the mapping of same, federal land law and historical as well as current government land regulation.

His website is truly remarkable. What a tremendous collection of information in one spot. If you folks haven't checked it out yet, do so. You'll like it.

Mike

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I'm blushing. :blush:

Thanks for the support everyone. You each have contributed in your own way and that is appreciated more than you know.

Land Matters is now growing faster than we could have imagined.  We just finished up a coding marathon to make the Library useful. Give it a try - there's lots of useful research materials there and there is more being added every day

We had hoped when the Library upgrade was finished we could get out and dig a few bullets and boot tacks. That's not going to happen now. The BLM killed what little was left of the geocommunicator a few weeks ago and our traffic more than doubled immediately afterwards.

We just quadrupled the server space and memory to handle the increased load. This has the advantage of giving us more room to build in some of the bigger projects we have planned but the disadvantage of quadrupling our bills. Success can be a little rough at times.

poddar66 welcome to the forum. Land Matters is not an advocacy group as Steve pointed out. Land Matters was formed to provide easy public access to public information about land in one place. We hope all sides on any issue will feel comfortable using Land Matters to get the facts associated with their area of interest. Facts can go a long way in reaching consensus on divisive issues.

We are however very interested in any land status changes. It's not thrilling reading but we check the Federal Register every day for any land status changes. I haven't seen anything new about the plan you speak of since 1976. Please direct us to the information so we can update our Library and Maps.

I'm just a volunteer at Land Matters but I do have strong opinions about how the feds deal with land status. I sometimes make announcements for Land Matters or respond to posts like this one. When I do act for Land Matters I try to keep my opinions to myself in respect for Land Matters neutrality policy. If you are interested in what I think keep your eyes peeled and you will see me pop up from time to time with my personal opinions when I'm not writing for my favorite non-profit.

Barry

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23 hours ago, Clay Diggins said:

Please direct us to the information so we can update our Library and Maps.

I think he was referring to HR 621. Earlier this week on NPR I heard them talking about it, it was a bill to sell 3.3 million acres of BLM land introduced by Chaffetz. He has since promised to kill the bill after a lot of protest by hunters and other outdoors groups.

We had something similar in Wyoming in our state congress which was supposed to initiate the transfer of federal lands to state control, sponsored by the coal companies here. It too was thankfully killed finally after a lot of protest by hunting and fishing groups here too.

Anyways, I'm sure this trend is going to continue state by state, something to watch out for. I know there is momentum in Arizona and has been for a while. State land is all posted "no trespassing" around here. Just something to consider. 

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Thanks, Jasong. HB 621 introduced by Congressman Chaffetz of Utah is correct.  The Guardian online has links to the bill and to a report of the land to be sold.

I live and prospect in Central Virginia, but hope to soon visit the wide, open spaces out West, as opposed to the heavily forested and brush-choked ground I normally play in, for some detector prospecting. When I learned of the bill, I wondered how the it might impact the availability of BLM land for prospecting out west.

As you suggest, I'll keep watching and hoping that there will be places to detect when I finally get the chance to visit the western US.  It sounds like the Land Matters Advantage service might be a useful resource when planning my visit.

 

 

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