Clay Diggins

Each person has to determine their tolerance for anxiety related to unenforceable or unenforced laws or regulations. That always comes down to an individual decision. I certainly don't want to be in the position of telling adults how they must act or think. I share what I know with the hope that with knowledge comes power. Each individual must decide based on their own personal situation how they will deal with these types of situations. Far be it from me to be the judge of their decision but I hope I can help give them enough information to make that decision as fact based as possible. I'm pretty fed up with executive agency overreach and I imagine some of that comes through in my writing. Much like you Steve the vast majority of my encounters with public servants is positive. More than once I've had assistance in stemming that agency overreach from the very people who are the most involved in enforcing bad regulations or policies. One Forest Superintendent in particular was instrumental in helping me change public lands laws for the better at the Congressional level. There are some very good and caring people working for us despite the public perception of an ongoing battle with all public land managers. I believe that education of the public land users will eventually overcome the bad intent of a few public land administrators. Making land management agency employees the enemy cuts us off from the many knowledgeable supporters we already have in those agencies. Manufactured fear or uncertainty plays into the hands of the very people who are not serving us well in the land management agencies. Seeing an enemy where there is none is counterproductive. Assuming bad intent when none has been demonstrated is a disservice to those public servants doing their best for a sometimes ungrateful public. I envision a future where knowledgeable public land users are well served by the laws and their proper application by the agency land managers. There was a time in the not too distant past when we were close to obtaining that ideal. I don't know if that is ultimately possible today but I'm sure as ell going to do my best to bring it about. Rumor and fear are an obstruction to that goal so please forgive me if I bring some passion to my efforts to redirect those rumors and fear to something more useful. Barry

In my recollection Mike the restriction on detecting NRAs generally are created with each NRA. Those "restrictions" are not universal, one can detect with the permission of the Superintendent on the NRAs I'm familiar with. Maybe those restrictions are non existent or absolute on other NRAs - I really couldn't tell you without studying the laws regarding any specific NRA. I left NRAs out of the request for the very reason that the use of detectors there and in National Parks and Historic Sites are controlled by different laws than other public lands. Barry

Gosh guys, I give you the benefit of the little book learning I have and you're thinking I'm not talking about real life too? I reread my post and I can see how you might take it that way so I'll be a little more clear. I read books and I study law but that's not all I do - check out the reality I know of and tell me if you have any first hand experience that contradicts mine. The big example that's bantered around every time someone asks about "relics" and the antiquities laws is Greaterville right? Everybody knows the Forest Service in Greaterville has ticketed detectorists for digging nails and trash - heck hardly anyone is foolish enough to detect Greaterville any more. Well... everybody but Paul and Border Boy. Here's my first hand experience with Greaterville. I know Chris, the Forest Archaeologist, and the enforcement down there pretty well. We lived on the grounds as a caretakers for the FS. A few months after the relic hunting tickets started flying in Greaterville Ruby and I hosted a meeting between the FS and BLM. I asked about the detecting tickets at that meeting. At first no one could figure out what I was talking about so I told them what was being said on the forums. Laughter all around once the story was told. When everybody calmed down I was told that they weren't about to waste their time with writing tickets for detectorists collecting the junk from the last century. Chris stated that if any of the enforcement guys ever tried that he would refuse to testify that any of it was over 100 years old - any prosecution would require his cooperation. The joke is that in Greaterville one of the biggest problems is "history saving" visitors hauling mining trash from the last 130 years up to Kentucky Camp. Almost every day some do-gooder drags in a chunk of pipe, sheet metal or a few bolts. Every year this rusted metal pile of old junk has to be gathered and hauled off to the dump or it would overwhelm the site. Nobody at Greaterville would ever complain about someone collecting a pocket full of metal trash from detecting, they might thank you but they sure aren't going to ticket you. I did follow up with the fellow that claimed he was ticketed at Greaterville. I checked with the FS headquarters and the court. Long story short the whole "I got a ticket for detecting junk in Greaterville" story was made up. It never happened. Now here's the deal, I do study land law and I do make a habit of sharing my understanding of what I've read. I also follow up on the various stories I hear. I'm not afraid to make a few phone calls, pull a few strings and ask straight up questions. Been doing that for a lot of years. I never want to be the guy who believes book learning is the basis of any reality. I have a certain passion for finding where and how our land managers are walking outside the lines we have laid down for them. I not only learn where those lines are but how well they are being observed in "real life". Remember how I wrote that it took 68 years before the government tried anyone for a violation of the Antiquities Act? Things haven't changed much in the 40 years since then. Prosecutions under the Antiquities Act are rare. I haven't been able to find one single ticket written for detecting old settler items over 100 years old anywhere. There may be some but the three I've been told about were all tall stories with no basis in fact. If you know of any tickets or arrests of detectorists hunting non native American objects on the public lands I would love to hear the details. I don't have any interest in those about hunting designated Historical Sites, National Parks or NRAs. I would like to hear first or second hand information that will lead to a copy of a ticket, fine or arrest record. So far no one has been able to produce one. It appears that Forest Service and BLM employees are following the letter of the law. I haven't found a single verifiable circumstance where any district manager has tried to make their own rules or regulations. Real life. I'm not suggesting anyone push any limits or any buttons. Detect within your comfort zone whatever that amounts to for you. I just hate to see folks scared of stuff that isn't real. If you are within your rights and no one is ticketing people for detecting within their rights... the choice is yours. Barry

Your assumption about "What constitutes an archaeological resource is also open to broad interpretation" is incorrect Steve. The Antiquities Act clearly states that only "uniform regulation" can be relied on as a standard for interpretation and enforcement. Congress was very clear about that - they repeated that restriction 7 times in the Act. From the Act itself: Each proposed regulation has to be submitted to both houses of Congress on the same day. From the Antiquities Act: When I refer to the "Antiquities Act" I do include all the amendments including the "Archaelogical Resources Protection Act" as well as the "Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Protection Act". The reason why all the regulations are the same everywhere is because the original 1906 Act was declared unenforceable by the Supreme Court the only time a prosecution was attempted (which was in 1974 - 68 years after the law was passed). The reason it was shot down by the Supreme Court was because it was "void for vagueness". Congress fixed that error in the "Archaelogical Resources Protection Act of 1979" by insisting on "uniform regulations" that were not vague nor variable in their application. Same regulations and enforcement everywhere is the law no matter what your local land manager may think. Barry

The Antiquities Act applies to evidence of past human life which are of archaeological interest, as determined under uniform regulations. Even then they must be 100 years or older. Not all objects older than 100 years old are of archaeological interest. The "uniform regulation" part means the local ranger or archies can't make up their own rules. The same regulations apply whether you are in a Forest, National Park, BLM managed land or Wildlife Preserve. Bullets and coins are excepted from the law as well as arrowheads found on the surface. Mining is exempt from enforcement under the Antiquities Act. Real life - The Forest Archaeologists I've spoken to say the stuff near to 100 years is so hard to positively identify as to age that only a fool would testify in court that they were older than 100 years. Rose head and cut nails are still being made and used today. Rusted steel or iron is not an indication of age etc. They all said it's about native American stuff for them. Government bullies and posers may push the issue but most archies just want to be left alone to discover and dig really old sites. Realistically it's a good idea to notify a claim owner before detecting a claimed area. Sure it's legal to beep for relics there but a lot of claim owners believe their claim rights are much greater than they really are. Best to beep without the thought that you might be accosted - justified or not. Rhetorical question arises. How many here would rebury a 12 ounce gold nugget should one be uncovered while searching for "relics"? Barry

Nice looking set Steve! Are these pre tuned or do you need to polish and align the fields yourself?

You may well be right to lack confidence about the continued existence of the small miners Steve. Congress doesn't pay much attention to the detail when budget deals are being made. Something as seemingly small as the few million dollars brought in by eliminating the small miners could be wagered in a larger deal. Luckily this BLM budget wish list has not, and probably never will, make it into the budget deliberations. This is just the the BLM submission to the DOI pile of proposals that, if they survive, are then passed on to the President for consideration as part of the executive budget proposal that is then passed to the congressional budget committee for consideration for inclusion in the actual budget that is then negotiated and voted on by the two houses of Congress. By my count that's five steps to get to a vote. The first step is what we are discussing here. The DOI might pass the proposal to the President if it's not going to PO someone in the party looking to be elected as President. The President might pass it on to Congress if it hasn't already been negotiated away as part of another deal. The budget committee might consider the proposal (or whats left of it) but usually everyone ignores the budget proposals of a lame duck President. And that is why this proposal never makes it to the budget vote. This year might be different but with jockeying for position for the elections and a lame duck executive the odds are slim. I don't doubt that there are many factions that think changing the mining law would give them an advantage. I doubt that could come directly from the BLM wish list. Any change is going to come from another direction, this is just the red herring thrown out there for decades. I do wish miners were more educated about the law making process. Concentrating on the executive is looking 180 degrees the wrong direction. Congress makes law - not the President. A good example is the Defense Appropriations Bill. This is where the annual mining claims fees were raised two years ago. Those Defense Appropriations only have a two year lifetime. Miners could have been lobbying Congress to make sure the fees were not renewed in this past years bill. Instead they are concentrating on a BLM wish list that historically isn't given serious consideration. Just one man's opinion. Barry

This same BLM budget proposal comes around every two years. If you understand the strength of the mining lobby you understand why this is a no starter. Just yesterday I was reviewing an OMB audit of the mining claims fees from 2001 and lo and behold they included reference to this same BLM proposal exactly. Near as I can tell it was originally written during Carter's time in the late 1970's. Some congresscritters keep this around as a bargaining chip come budget time. It will never pass committee but it makes certain congressmen appear as if they deserve greenie votes - and funding. The OMB audit was much more interesting than this proposal. Barry

We've just updated the BLM LR2000 Claims maps. This update reflects the BLM claims status on February 16th, 2015. We try to update this database about once a month. Please read the disclaimer. The BLM is not always accurate and never timely but these maps are still a good place to begin your research. You can look up the current status of any particular listed claim direct from the map interface and use the advanced search to find any combination of claim name, number or claimant right on the map. We try to give the most accurate and useful information possible on Land Matters. The current BLM LR2000 is not noted for accuracy but it is the source of some interesting information. Below are three current interpretations of the claims numbers that might give you a little different insight into the nature of claims in the public lands mining states. Interesting? Barry

Wow! Land Matters sure has come a long way since these last posts. As of today, just a little more than 5 months after launching, Land matters has had more than 1.3 million hits and served up more than 190 Gb of maps. files, videos and data. Here's why Land Matters has become so popular so quick. We now have Active BLM LR2000 mining claims maps for all the public land mining states. Those maps have a lot of information on each claim as well as direct live links to the BLM LR2000 serial page for each claim. The claims maps are now split into lode and placer claims for easier searching. Every claims map has land status and PLSS (Public Land Survey System) mapping available too. We've also added the BLM and State claims mapping for Alaska. Those have additional information on each claim and boundary mapping as well as land status and PLSS mapping. As a bonus the Alaska claims maps also have an MTP (Master Title Plat) display layer. You can now find and download any of the more than 265,000 current and historical topo maps on our new Topo Search Map. Just click the information button while zoomed in to your area of interest and then select from all the topo map versions for that area. A great historical research tool! The Land Matters Library is growing by leaps and bounds too. We have recently added downloads for all 227 of the original Geologic Folios as well as 1,784 of the more recent Geologic Quads. You'll find everything there from the California MVUM (Motor Vehicle Use Maps) for the California Forests and the Gilpin County Colorado Mining District Records. Don't pass by the Land Matters Tutorials section either. We are just getting started there but you will find tutorials and videos on how to determine land status including the LR2000 and the Master Title Plat systems. Land Matters is just getting started. We've got 1,000s of documents to add to the Library and we have many many more interactive maps to add to the collection. Stay tuned there is a lot more to come! Barry

I like the site Ray. Did you use a template or is it from scratch? Google just recently changed the way their speed tool works so everybody gets a lower score now. I wouldn't worry about it - your page load speeds didn't change - just the "standards". Optimizing your site to Google standards is fine if you want a fast site on an Android phone running Chrome browser. You will be chasing your tail for the foreseeable future though. The Google Kids like to change the standards every few weeks.

I like your attitude Steve. Life isn't always about being right or winning. Now this subject is getting into the realm of religion. Best to leave that and politics to others in my opinion. I wish all the LRL users the best of luck. My belief is they will need that luck. Now you have my opinion and my belief. With that and a $1.25 you can get a lukewarm styrofoam cup of coffee. Heavy Pans

One of the more interesting uses of the GLO site patents records is to look up patents (private land) that may be blocking access to good hunting land beyond. If the patent survey shows public access through the patent the owners of the patent do not have exclusive use of the road. The public access is a part of the patent grant. Court decisions in the past have ordered patent owners to provide public access. Usually this is done by ordering gates and obstacles to be removed but in some cases simply leaving the gate unlocked or allowing the passerby a key or lock combination will suffice. Some of those old railroad patent blocks come to mind as a good study subject in that regard.

You will never get caught up Steve. There are more than 5 million patents there and that's just the tip of the iceberg! We spend a lot of time with the Land Status section. The Master Title Plats, Supplements and CDI index are the key to finding the status of any Federal managed lands. It's truly a world beyond. A second home for some of us!

That two terabyte drive will fill up faster than you can believe Steve. It's the old house rule. Given ANY size house a man will eventually overfill it with stuff. Big house... lots of stuff. Memory and storage have gotten a lot cheaper. That helps a lot. Processing power not so much. To get that doubling of computer power for the next step something new is going to have to come around. The traditional chip isn't getting appreciably faster. We stack processors and memory pretty deep already but that only helps - it doesn't solve the problem. With everyone going to phones and tablets for their day to day computer needs there isn't much incentive for chip makers to take big leaps to new technology. It's all about lower power consumption and less heat these days. LIDAR will provide new insights into the world we live in. With stuff like retina screens and bigger brighter displays the consumers are there to enjoy those insights but the production is going to be slow and expensive for the foreseeable future.

Low resolution raw LIDAR data is publicly available for free for about 1/3 of the United States, mostly the east coast and developed areas. High resolution LIDAR (1-3 cm) is available in a few areas. Mostly for environmental studies or only available privately. Without LIDAR we have to rely on DEMs (Digital Elevation Models) for elevation data. These are mostly just a rehash of the old paper topo maps with hand drawn elevation lines converted into even lower resolution digital point shapes represented by light and dark shades on an artificial black and white image. The shades of gray of each pixel represent different elevation values. These DEMs have a high factor of human input error. Mountains and valleys sometimes appear wher there is nothing but a road or a visually confusing feature on the original topo map. If I were to describe the conversion method for these topo's derived DEMs I'm sure you would be in awe of the influence of primitive technology in our "modern" lives. LIDAR is really just a (sometimes) higher resolution version of this system with the difference being the LIDAR points are defined by direct reflection of a laser light rather than ground observations with optical equipment, geometry and trigonometry - traditional survey equipment and methods. The final result in either case is still a grid of values most usually visualized and stored as a photo image in shades of gray. Although just about any data storage format will work humans still naturally understand complex data with their eyes better than any other sense. The features you see on your link were buried in the original LIDAR data. A lot of post processing (number crunching) is necessary to turn the raw data into detail like you see on the website linked. In other words the LIDAR system itself is not discriminating out the trees and ground cover. That is done by applying some pretty complex algorithms to the data after the fact. All of that processing actually lowers resolution and accuracy. To be truly effective for any particular purpose those algorithms are usually customized to the project requirements. We use LIDAR on some of our private mapping projects along with matching high resolution georectified aerial imagery. This can reveal several features you could never see from the ground or the air. We can build 3D models that very closely conform to reality and move through those models in three dimensions. This is a very realistic process and allows us to include measured, extrapolated or even sensed data for underground features. Mining companies love this stuff, not so much for project management but for making presentations for investors. The size of the data involved is a very real problem. Terabytes of data are needed for even a small area and processes take a very long time to run on data that size. Just obtaining the data can be a very long process. We can order a LIDAR scan of just about anywhere in the world but the logistics of producing that scan can be overwhelming. A good high quality scan requires several manned precisely located ground stations as well as some very expensive aerial equipment. Just getting the time booked can be a long wait and getting the skilled ground and air crews working together under ideal conditions can be a virtual impossibility. Add in the difficulty and expense of placing those ground crews on landlocked parcels, hostile territory, difficult terrain or legally challenged access can make the entire process prohibitively expensive and slow. Like much of what is possible in theory the theoretical 1 cm accuracy of a LIDAR scan is rarely if ever achieved in real life. This is not a new technology, it's been around since the 1960's, but until now the technology to push it into the realm of useful and affordable has been lacking. That is changing and I look forward to a time when high resolution ground scans can be considered an accessible tool for many professions. Until then it is a gas to work with small areas in high definition, I only wish more clients could afford the time and money involved in high resolution LIDAR.

Now you're talking my language Ray! Thanks for the input. Those two along with the Merced are my old stomping grounds so I'm looking forward to seeing those myself. Lot of stuff has changed there since the '70s! Barry

Hi Steve, Thanks for the input. The South Fork isn't much requested yet so it's probably more than a year away. I heard there's no gold there? Right now the North Fork of the Yuba and Rye Patch are the top contenders. Enough people calling for the South Fork before January could change all that though. I sure would like to see the entire American basin "snapped" together. Hmmm Barry

Hi Steve, A very generous sense of serendipity you've got! Thanks again. You will need to register each FootPrint to get the claims updates. Software updates, like mapping improvements and tools are available to all FootPrints users without registration but the claims updates are reserved for registered users. Unlike other software we don't know who you are or which FootPrint you have installed. Our software doesn't "phone home" and we have no way of knowing which maps you are using or when you are using them. We don't like snoops and in our business privacy is essential. Each FootPrint user is entirely in control of what is installed on their computer for FootPrints. The registration information is only used to contact you about updates. Your information is never shared. I do have a working "snap" tool for the Bradshaws FootPrints but it needs more testing before it's ready for download. We are concentrating on claims updates right now along with some useful program upgrades. The Bradshaws "snap" is nearer to the end of that schedule than the beginning. I'm hoping we can get that tool along with all the updates and upgrades ready for users before the end of the year. We should begin rolling out those updates next week. Barry

The California FootPrints are being done by drainage basin. Pick a river drainage and I'll have a better idea of the area you are interested in deathray. I should have an interactive map with all the existing and proposed FootPrints boundaries up on the website soon. Please realize on a 4.7 Gb DVD we can only fit a little over 200 square miles. Any larger and we get into multiple disks for installing and a much longer production time. To give you an idea of why these FootPrints take so long to make, the total data used to create that 200+ square mile map is more than 1.2 Terabytes. We smash smoosh and trim everywhere we can to get that down to about 12 Gb and then do several steps of compression magic to get it onto a DVD and your computer. Make sure and register your FootPrints Steve. There are updates for the software that are available for free to all FootPrints users but the claims updates only go out to registered users. We've got a nifty update that will "snap" your North Fork and Middle Fork maps together so you can use them as one.

What a nice greeting! I signed up here on Steve's forum last Friday night and left for the weekend. I hadn't had a break in the last month so the better half and I took some private time this weekend. I thought I was coming home to endless work and find this wonderful surprise. Thanks everybody for the comments. I love it when FootPrints users "get it". I wasn't aware Steve Herschbach was using the software or even knew about it. It's gratifying to know that a prospector of Steve's caliber sees value in what we do with FootPrints. Looking around this thread alone I see some very experienced miners. I'm obviously in quality company here, it's particularly nice to be welcomed by such a great group of people. I honestly don't know why it took me so long to sign up here. I hope I can contribute here, I'm not much of a detectorist but I do have a few other useful skills and a nice #2 shovel. We've been preparing claims updates on the 11 available FootPrints. Those will start rolling out this week along with several user requested program upgrades. The BLM has been really dragging their feet the last two years on updating their claims case records but the last few months they have finally started to catch up so these updates might give you a reasonable idea of what's really happening in your FootPrint area. Many more FootPrints are planned. It takes about five months for the two of us working 70 hour weeks to finish a new FootPrint so they are always going to be slow in coming out. Add in the commercial jobs for mining companies that actually pay the bills and about two new FootPrints a year is all we can handle. We hope to start the next FootPrint in January. Which area that will be is up to user input. Right now the Yuba is the most requested with Rye Patch coming in second. That can change before January so don't be afraid to let us know what you want - you just might get it. Thanks again everyone, it feels good to be here. Barry