Clay Diggins

The Sage Grouse Proposed Mineral Withdrawal by the BLM would close nearly 10 million acres of land to mineral entry. This affects claims in 5 western states. Friday the 15th of January (this Friday!) is the deadline for comments on the proposal. Generally comments and opinions don't apply to the Secretary's decision but with the time near and facts on hand a little attention by more than a few voters and representatives might just convince the Secretary to think twice. If the withdrawal goes ahead no new claims can be made in the withdrawn area. In addition the existing claims are likely to come under greater scrutiny and challenges to their validity. That puts nearly 7,000 mining claims in the sights of the BLM land managers. Now is the most effective time to share your opinions and present facts to influence the outcome. With little time left the Secretary will have less chance to bring influence or political pressure to bear on members of Congress should they object. Land Matters has been working hard to figure out how many and which claims will be at stake should the withdrawal be approved. We've produced a comprehensive report on all the claims affected in this proposal and made an interactive map with just the claims within the proposed withdrawal area. The BLM did not assist in the preparation of this report. We spent considerable time and effort in hand mapping the location of these claims in relation to the proposed withdrawal. I could find no evidence the Secretary even knows how many or what claims would be affected. I'm sure she and your representatives would appreciate being informed of this information to help their decisions to be made on all the facts available. This is a factual report that you can not only view online but there is a zipped download available directly from the reports front page. At a mere 159Kb in size this report can be shared by email quite easily. Why not look over the whole situation and check in with your representatives to make sure they know the facts about the potential effects of this withdrawal should it be approved. The new custom interactive Sage Grouse Proposed Withdrawal Map shows just the claims affected with all the claim information normally found only on the Land Matters Mining Claims Maps. Be sure to read and download the interactive Sage Grouse Proposed Withdrawal Report too. To give you an idea of whats at stake with this withdrawal look over this summary chart from the report. Barry

Sulphur detection is probably the major commercial use for XRF. Fuels, chemicals and food suppliers use them extensively. That being said the machines they use now are very programmable so it could easily be that the explanation for no Sulphur was that it wasn't tested for. Good call.

Are they 99.75% certain that it's iron? Or is the material 99.75% iron? The reason I ask is Pyrite runs about 47% iron and 53% sulfur. I'm sure there's some variation in that ratio but 99.75% iron wouldn't form a pyrite. It's nice material and the piece 1515art gave you is particularly suited to jewelry. I'm eager to see the final result. Thanks for sharing 1515art your generosity is inspiring and I'm sure Steve will do a beautiful job. Good stone has always been a fascination for me. I never tire of seeing what will be revealed by the saw and the wheel. Barry

That's Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly nevada00d. It's kinda important to the Navajo. No gold there or anywhere near there. The Lost Adams mine is 187.56 miles away as the crow flies.

There aren't any publicly available systems like the Alaska State mining maps because the lower 48 weren't granted the minerals at Statehood. Alaska is virtually unique in that respect with the exception of Texas. What little mineral lands that are owned by the western states are held in dedicated trusts and are generally leased by the section by non public means. The public claims mapping systems in Alaska, British Colombia and Australia are great examples of how things could be with a little effort and ingenuity. I'm not holding my breath for that sea change. Barry

I was responding to your previous question Jasong: I wasn't offering to map private ownership of subsurface estate for free I was only speaking of mapping public ownership of subsurface estate. The BLM doesn't have any public record of private subsurface (mineral) ownership. If you are a Landman I'm sure you already understand that. There are about 300 million acres of surface estate and about 700 million acres of subsurface estate under U.S. ownership in the lower 48. Essentially that means that only about 42% of all mineral lands are shown on current maps. The fact that the BLM doesn't actually know the total of subsurface acres should tell you something about the accuracy of what maps they do have. I do care about accuracy. Putting out inaccurate information about mineral ownership to prospectors isn't something I'm willing to do. You might try something as simple as downloading the Master Title Plats and Supplements for your area of interest. Historical Indexes and Patents from the General Land Office should further clarify any specific questions you still have. The status of the PUBLIC lands, including the subsurface, is public information that can be looked up by anyone. The fact that the BLM has botched the job of keeping track of those subsurface lands isn't an indication the information is unavailable. Mapping those lands is a huge but doable project. Leasable minerals and O&G on private land is not a subject Land Matters will be addressing anytime in the next few years unless BIG grant money rolls in that's targeted at private lands status. As you already pointed out the status of the private lands in the U.S. is big business so I'm not holding my breath for anyone to pay to have that information available free to the public. Barry

We haven't had much time to work on that map Jasong. We've determined that most of what the BLM has offered for subsurface estate is out of date, inaccurate and not going to be shared in a usable form. We do have a long term plan in place to derive that information from public land and patent information. That's a very big project but it will accomplish several other goals in the process so we've determined that it's worth the effort. The bi-monthly extraction has a lot more information than the LR2000 website does. The whole database download amounts to more than 1 gig each two weeks and the information is presented in the original segregated table form unlike the aggregated LR2000 reporting service. Besides the ability to parse more extensive data and make innovative joins that are not possible with the LR2000 keeping each full database download allows us to do time and volume based analysis that isn't possible with the static data found in the LR2000 or single issue downloads from the bi monthly extract. If you have the drive space, a fully time and spatially enabled database system and some good processing power there are several analysis you can accomplish that go well beyond the LR2000 or BLM static reports available. The Land Matters Claims Advantage Special Reports are a good example with a lot more sophisticated reports still to come as the full database accumulates over time. You are welcome Azavsfan. It's encouraging to know that you have found it useful. The BLM and most other agencies have outsourced these projects for years to ESRI. Virtually every effort by that huge corporation, including the geocommunicator, has been a spectacular multi billion dollar failure. Our own frustration at this situation led us to create Land Matters. Despite the multi billion dollar ongoing budget for the geocommunicator Land Matters has accomplished more in a year with two unpaid part time volunteers working on 6 year old consumer computers than ESRI has done with approximately 4.7 billion dollars and all the resources of the Federal government in more than 15 years. Clearly public information is better presented by the public than by huge mismanaged government programs. The BLM is the least cooperative of the agencies we deal with. That's probably due to the culture that has built up there since the joining of the two agencies into the BLM in 1948. They are the least effective agency we've dealt with when it comes to their primary record keeping function. I think their substandard training and flawed record keeping systems lead to a "who cares" attitude. Add in the armed cop culture that was introduced in 1988 and you've got a generally substandard agency with a bad attitude towards the public they are supposed to serve. That being said there are good people that do a good job within the BLM. We deal with several of them on a regular basis. We've had quite a few of them contact us privately to thank us for what we do and for providing the tools they have come to rely on. I'm sure you would be surprised at who some of our government fans are. I hope we can encourage those individuals since years of hand slapping and shaming by Congress have done nothing to help the situation. In fact the result of Congress' efforts is generally the opposite of what you would expect. It's time to try something different and for us at least we've decided that difference is in encouraging the good ones and helping them succeed. The alternative is virtually unthinkable. The BLM in their Land Office function are the record keepers for the nation - they must succeed if we are to prosper. The fact is that we are stuck with these government agencies and their fruitless outsourcing contracts for the time being. We can make a difference but that's going to come down to individual effort. Trying to drum out the rot in these agencies by complaining is pretty much useless. Not everyone can take the reins with a project like Land Matters. We can however make a better future by encouraging the good, hardworking, competent individuals who work within these agencies every day. They have a thankless low paying job but they mostly persevere. Many eventually leave in frustration but with a little help, recognition and encouragement enough of them may stay and eventually create a helpful responsive government agency culture. All public land users can participate in communicating with the BLM personnel and thanking those who help. That's pretty simple and basic but the current standard of avoiding or making enemies of our public employees has obviously been counterproductive. The choice is always ours. We can curse and complain or we can encourage and enable. We've opted for a get it done attitude rather than waiting for these agencies to come around on their own. We may fail but no one will be able to say we didn't try. Barry

As many of you know Land Matters updates their free online mining claims maps twice a month. Normally we get updates from the BLM servers in Denver on the 2nd and the 16th of each month. We just received word today that the BLM has been having difficulty with their database updates for the last month or two and now it's affecting their partner delivery system. Best estimate right now is we will see updates by end of day tomorrow January 6th. If you were wondering when the claims map update is coming or when the Claims Advantage Member reports will be available now you know. We will bring those updates to you as soon as we have the information. Barry

Just a reminder: Small Miners claim holders need to have their Affadavit of Labor or their Intent to Hold County Record copies filed with the BLM State office by end of day tomorrow Wednesday December 30th. Don't be late or you will lose your claim.

Just a little Christmas poem from Ruby. Wishing everyone a merry one. Barry

You're not all that old Chris... I haven't seen the article yet but I think you are the best writer in the mining business. I look forward to reading it. ... Remember wives always know best - even when they don't. Barry

I'll look forward to your new super detector Jasong!

That's a remote control Steve. It's been done. Could easily be done with a phone, probably even an old dial type if you can live without the display. Even the ad refers to it as a novelty accessory. I thought you were talking about signal processing a transmitted coil signal on a phone. That's what a metal detector does (like I need to tell you that. ). An App Based Detector. That's what I was addressing in my post. It's not all about processor speed despite the hype. No way does an iPad have the processing power of a modern desktop computer. It doesn't even have a decent I/O interface much less the processor or bus speeds. Neither the AMD phone chips nor the Android operating system have double precision floating point processing capability. Trying to crunch numbers on a pad is like molasses in January compared to a modern desktop. Crunching numbers is an important tool in my business and we have tried on our iPad. The phones and pads are good at what they are designed for but so is the cheapest Bounty Hunter. Depends on what you want to accomplish it's not about the frequencies mentioned in the advertising. If you just want remote control from your phone that is very doable.

I've added the Sage Grouse proposed Mineral Withdrawal display to the Mining Claims Maps for the five affected states. It's a separate layer you will have to turn on to see. This map has been heavily requested. Check it out while you can since the BLM is known for disappearing maps without notice. This map was not easy to find. It's not going to be easy to use either because the BLM is serving it up in a light dirt color that blends with just about every base map layer. Now is a good time to learn to use the transparency tool found by right clicking the layer you want to change the transparency on. The affected States Mining Claim Maps are linked here: Oregon Idaho Wyoming Nevada Utah Here's the description of the Map information from the BLM. As you can see the map isn't accurate because the boundaries of the final withdrawal won't be decided until after it's passed. We are trying to figure out a way to get a list of the affected claims from this information. If we succeed we will make a list and share it on the Land Matters website. Please pass these maps around. It's your Land and it Matters. Barry

Of course the world would be better with open source "apps" that do whatever we want for free. That model is breaking down at present due to lack of incentive on the part of the folks who write the code but that could change. As long as consumers are willing to pay 100s of dollars for a marginal computing device but want free or low cost "apps" to get use out of their purchase the quality of "apps" is going to be stuck at Candy Crush and Minelab's 20 year old XChange 2 format. Relying on "free" for your software does have it's drawbacks. It's really ultimately going to be up to the "old line" companies to come up with an "app". Either they need to pony up on the R&D costs or license their technology because the actual final results are determined by the processing of the raw signal no matter what method was used to produce it. Those processing systems are proprietary and are what distinguish the capabilities of one detector from another, all else being equal. I don't think phones, in their present form, are capable of handling that processing, but they are getting closer. The big octa-core processors can now handle the math involved but the bus speeds are still a stumbling block. The new iPhone upped the bus speed, and performance, considerably but with it's dual core processor it's about the slowest of the "smart" phones when it comes to math. Breaking the multi core, bus speed, graphics, battery capacity, heat circle is the big task ahead for phones. They've got a long way to go to catch up with even your average home computer much less the purpose built processing of a device like a modern pi detector. Their small size and low power radio requirements just don't allow the use of the latest speed technologies. Other than bus speed improvements coprocessors are probably the best way to get the capability needed. The Apple M7 coprocessor and the Motorola 8 core split show that coprocessors can lead the way to faster computing on phones but they also demonstrate that phone makers are more interested in adding more locational ability, better graphics and games than they are in making a computer like device. The smart phone is, after all is said and done, a walkie talkie with interesting and sometimes useful features added. As long as the bulk of the buying public finds that formula desirable the processing power advances that might lead to a sophisticated and responsive phone app based detector are going to be incidental at best. Eventually we will break out of the concept of phones and detectors being different machines just as most people today see email as a cell phone or web technology (it isn't). When that time comes I doubt we will be waving smart phones at our detectors but I'm not a prophet and stuff happens in the future that I haven't lived yet. It's always "anything can happen day".

WOW first Detector Prospector Man of the Year! Congratulations Paul you certainly deserve it. Excellent choice Steve and a great idea. Paul's generosity and good will is well known by his friends. Thanks for recognizing Paul and setting an example for good forum juju Steve.

You are welcome Spencer! I think the withdrawal map is doable if they have settled on a defined area. I'll look around and see if that info is available yet.

It sounds like they are declaring the Plan abandoned and revoked. That's a big difference from closing a claim. From what you write here maybe he didn't complete his work and reclamation timely within the terms of the Plan of Operation? That would cause a POO to be revoked. 43 CFR 3809.602 If he agreed to do the work then he may lose his bond and have his plan revoked but his claim can't be closed for not mining it.

We've been saving up data for Land Matters for a while now. We have a lot of sources for the data we are compiling but the biggest part, most months, is the twice monthly BLM database copies we archive from the BLM server in Denver. We download more than 3 Gb of database files each month in updates and that allows us to do time based comparisons of the information. That's a whole other dimension of analysis than looking around the LR2000 database. Besides our twice monthly Mining Claims Maps updates and twice monthly Claims Advantage Closed Claims Reports we have started to publish Special Reports that leverage our database to answer questions that can't be answered by just looking through the public information. That's where we are getting the information to make the charts I've been posting here and the very popular Mining Claims Maps on the Land Matters website. The latest Special Report answers the question: How many Placer Claim locations were held for more than 20 years and are now unclaimed? The basic answer is pretty amazing: Yeah... that many, that old and that long. That many old historical Placer Claims are not now claimed. Makes you wonder if we are missing something or if in the old days they mined mud for fun. :icon_scratch: To get the final result we broke these claims down by Quarter Section and took out the obvious withdrawn and now private areas. We checked against current active claims locations. Then we made a 15 page report, broken down by State and County, of each and every one of those claims. These report tables are sortable and each claim has a link to the Serial Register page for their closed case file. Since we had to use GIS software to make the report we ended up with a map that gives a basic outline of these areas. Even though we are still putting the finishing touches to the report I thought I would put up that map and let you take a quick look around at what 18,835 open claims look like. Here's the link to the map: Special Report #3 Map Look around. There might be something in your backyard! Yeah Paul, this is the report you've been waiting on. It should be in your box by morning ...er hippy time. Barry

You are right jasong. I misunderstood. I was confused because you applied the concept of a right to pursue a discovery to actual possession of land. Of course the right to try to do something does not automatically translate to a right to succeed. There is no right to enjoy the fruits of success without out actually accomplishing the task at hand. Thanks for clarifying that.

Your 700 million acres of locatable federally managed public lands is very close to the actual figure jasong. We are working on presenting those lands in map form in the upcoming months at Land Matters. It will be a first. You can speculate why that would be while we create that rather obviously needed map. I don't have a calculation for actual mineral deposit discoveries possible because by their very nature those are still unknown. As a general round figure I can accept 1% of locateable public land as a working hypothesis. Where you are mistaken is that the right is "granted to ALL people". The American Grants are by their very nature earned not given. It is well established in law and history that the right to a mineral grant is earned by the discovery and perfection of a valuable mineral deposit. There is no such thing as a collective right to to a grant or even a claim on public lands. The vast majority of the public will never discover a valuable mineral deposit nor will they earn any form of patent grant. All of the American Patent Grants were earned grants. Some actual action by claimants with well defined parameters have been required to earn every patent ever granted in the United States. Most of those patents were earned with much less effort and risk than any mineral patent grant. Those other patent grants were also less expensive per acre to purchase once the grant requirements were completed and the grant was earned. You and everyone in the west live on those granted, formerly public, lands. This recent concept that all Americans should share equally in the results of the labors of the few was never supported in the many forms of patent grants offered in the past. To try to apply such a standard today would result in severe inequality and hypocrisy, as you have already clearly demonstrated in your math.

Here's my take on the value and place of mineral patents. First the facts: The minerals belong to the claim locator, or his successors and assigns, whether it's kept as a perfected mining claim or patented as private land. As far as the public is concerned it's a difference without a distinction. There is no requirement to patent a mining claim just as there is no requirement to mine an unpatented mining claim. The ownership of the minerals is in the locator once the claim is perfected. The only long term difference is you would have nowhere to live if there had been no patents granted for the private land you now live on. _________________________ Now the opinion with supporting facts: There seems to be a vast misunderstanding of just what a patent grant is these days. I guess we could blame public education for not making it clear in their curriculum that the public lands are not owned by the government. The public lands are held in trust, by Congress, for the people. They have already been bought and paid for with the sweat and blood of our ancestors. The people of the nation own the public lands collectively and the express intent of those owners has always been to distribute those lands to the citizens willing to develop them for the collective good of the nation. This nation was impoverished until the multiple gold and silver discoveries were made in the 1840's and 1850's. There was no national coinage, the coin of the realm was the Spanish dolar or piece of eight. We didn't have enough gold and silver of our own to mint coins for general circulation. Mining made this country wealthy, not cotton, not pork bellies and not Microsoft. Even today this country is third in the world in the production of mined minerals. Not much has changed about the effects of mining on our wealth in those 160 years since we discovered our own world class mineral deposits. Not much except since the 1980's the Mining Acts that rewarded those who risked their lives and fortunes have had a good portion of the incentive to continue mining wealth from the ground removed. Mining has been stymied by those who believe it's unfair for miners to be rewarded for enriching this nation and it's people. Add in micromanagement by a misdirected populace and the threat to mining is clearly cultural. Since that change of public perception of historical fact has caused our present desires to override our present, and historical, need to produce real wealth we now are faced with paying the price to have others mine for us. Only the claim owner perceives the loss of the promise of a reward of patent for his risk and labor. The public is happy as long as they get their metals and minerals from somewhere. Removing the promise of a patent at the end of the long road of proving a valuable mineral deposit affects the independent miner far more than the big mining companies. It's been decades since mining companies saw a financial advantage to a patent over simple claim maintenance fees. Big mining companies now work large, low grade deposits with purpose built corporations that are dismantled, along with any future liabilities, once a deposit is worked out and reclaimed enough to recover their bonds. They have no incentive to patent those worked out deposits. If they need to return with new technology to mine again in the future they need only relocate with a new corporation - unless an independent miner has obtained a patent in the meantime. Once you understand that fact of business you might better understand just why there is a moratorium on the funding for mineral patent processing. It has nothing to do with fairness or justice and everything to do with perceived investor value. Greed is the driving force behind these changes. That greed is not the traditional reward of a patent to a hard working miner. That greed is in the endless calls of the "investor" for greater stock values rather than reliable dividends from a well managed mining business. Why that greed has been bred into finance in this country is another rant for a different forum. Suffice it to say I believe abusing the right to a patent with a moratorium on processing those patents is a direct affront to the industriousness and courage of individual miners.

I seem to recall there are about 24 more to go Steve. The funding moratorium goes away when Congress fails to vote to approve the next one. Every budget vote brings that possibility. Mike, I'd like to hear more about that Mineral Survey you worked on. Mineral Surveys are still possible despite the moratorium and the BLM still processes that portion of the paperwork. Unfortunately certified Mineral Surveyors are getting older. The last Mineral Surveyor Examination graduates were passed in 1986 so even the "new" ones are getting near retirement. I'm surprised more claim owners don't complete their proof to patent. When Congress lifts the moratorium the wise claim owner would be prepared to submit their application in my opinion.

We have several one eyed girls that don't smell too good lined up for you Paul. Will that do?

You may have gotten a good opportunity this week to prospect some of that big mining company land. The BLM recently closed 2,681 lode claims in Nevada. That another 55,075 acres to poke around on! Nevada is a BIG State. I'm wondering how much of it you could cover with a 14 inch coil in a lifetime? Wishing you all nuggets that require wenches winches for the Holidays. Sorry Paul I couldn't resist.