Clay Diggins

There are more than 500,000 active mining claims.

There are more than 240,000 claimants in the BLM database. We can't know the exact number because the BLM has removed 93% of all claimants from public access for the last two years. Those are all the claimants that were registered with the BLM from 1977 until November 2022 when claimants were removed from the database without notice.

The vast majority of mining claims are owned by mining companies. To give you some perspective a little more than 1% of mining claims are small miner claims.

By law those mining companies have to develop their claims to remain listed on the stock exchanges. My for profit business works with a lot of those mining companies and I can tell you first hand that billions are spent each year developing these claims. Just because you didn't see them drilling, sampling or doing aerial surveys doesn't mean that the claims aren't being developed.

If the claims are proven to be "worthless" these companies immediately relinquish the claims to get the liability off their books. Many thousands of claims are closed each year by the larger companies. Last year 31,434 claims were dropped and it looks like this year more than 50,000 (about 10%) will be dropped.

Now to the actual problem of providing current mining claims mapping on a phone.

My company already provides claims mapping to many companies and organizations twice a month. If Onyx wanted to provide this info all they would have to do is acquire a license from me. I doubt they are going to do that for two reasons - lack of customers and liability.

Although the U.S. mining business is huge, third largest in the world with a quarter million highly paid employees, the number of prospectors who don't work for those big mining/exploration companies is really small.

Land Matters provides anywhere from 10,000 to 120,000+ maps a day to our users. We update those maps twice a month and they are free for all users. Many, but not all, of those users are viewing mining claim maps. About 20% of those users are federal/state/local government employees that find Land Matters more useful than their internal systems. Probably another 10-15% are small exploration companies that have their own internal mapping systems (many of them get their data from me) but find Land Matters to be a quicker view of claim status while working on other projects. None of those users are going to be buying from Onyx. I know all that from personal conversations with my clients and email feedback.

I'm guessing there would be approx 50 - 100 users Onyx could pick up from the small mining community if they were to offer mining claim mapping.

The other problem for systems like Onyx is the mining claims liability issue. They can't have their users relying on out of date and inaccurate information when they put boots on the ground. There is no effective way to keep track of all those 500,000 claims in a timely manner.

Last week alone there were nearly 4,000 new claims and claim closures. The new claims typically don't show up in the system for anywhere from 120 days to six or more months after they are located. It may take the BLM as much as three years to mark a claim as closed. Add to that the fact that claims are located to the nearest square mile (section) and you have a very loose system to rely on.

The property ownership data is updated daily by the county assessors and Onyx can rely on the counties to keep track of the property ownership (and taxes) in a timely and accurate manner. The BLM not so much. In fact the BLM has only processed about 80% of all the claims in the U.S. with some states, like California, being less than 30% processed. That's a recent development in the last three years but the trend is accelerating in the wrong direction. For example 3 years ago Utah BLM was generally 95 - 100% caught up on updating claim status. Now they are dropping below 50% and soon to be below 40% up to date. Sad but true.

It's entirely possible for Onyx to provide claims mapping on their app. To provide reliable, accurate and timely claims mapping on a phone app is not possible in any form that would be profitable.

Barry

Here's a working interactive 3D model of Rich Hill with the mines and roads I made several years ago. You can turn off the labels by typing "L".

http://www.mylandmatters.org/3D/RH2.html

You are welcome to use my DEM and drape if you can figure out how to print it.

After checking though the recent claim closures MANY MANY of these "CLOSED" mining claims are in fact current on their fees and filings and likely should not have had their case files closed. For example in Nevada 4,074 of the 19,683 closed mining claims have their fees marked as being paid in the BLM database. It appears most of the closed claims in South Dakota were in fact paid on time. Something went wrong somewhere in the BLM closures.

The BLM seems to be aware of this problem as they have been correcting the incorrect "CLOSED" status on quite a few claims earlier this week. That may be because the claim owners notified the BLM of the error. If you have mining claims it might be a good idea to see if your claims ended up closed by mistake and notify the BLM.

This particular MLRS update is really messed up. As far as we can tell as many as half of the closed claims in some states were closed in error. This isn't the first time this has happened with the MLRS. In mid April and again in July of this year the BLM was unable to produce a database copy due to an ongoing problem.  In 2022 an error was made that eliminated nearly 11% of all claims by mistake.

When these type of errors happen it really messes things up for our users. In this case if we were to update the Land Matters Mining Claims maps with the new data thousands of active claims would no longer be shown on the map. This is the type of mistake that will lead to many claim disputes. For that reason Land Matters will not be updating their online Mining Claim maps until these mistakes are corrected by the BLM.

For claim owners I would strongly suggest you check your current claim status on the BLM serial register page. If your claim has been marked CLOSED in error contact the BLM and have them correct their case files.

For prospectors who encounter claims marked as "CLOSED" on the claim's Serial Register Page look to the Next Payment Due Date in the upper left and the most recent date under "MAINTENANCE FEE PAYMENT" in the action list further down the first page. If the Next Payment Due Date is 9/04/24 or the MAINTENANCE FEE PAYMENT is dated 2023 there is a very good chance the claim was closed in error.

Every claim on the Land Matters maps has a link directly to the current Serial Register page at the BLM.

I would also advise that the current online BLM MLRS map has all these closed claims incorrectly classified. Please don't rely on that mapping. It is incorrect.

I'll keep this thread updated as we learn more.

Barry

2 hours ago, Swegin said:

I wonder if the out of date Maintenance Fee Waiver Certification has anything to do with it?  I'm thinking folks didn't want to pay so they didn't file with the out of date form.

It could have. I'm looking into that. I'm not seeing a lot of dropped Small Miners but there is more number crunching to go.

I doubt the Small Miners will make much impact on the total of closed claims. Small Miner Waiver claims are only about 1.3% of all mining claims.

I am seeing a lot of claims closed that have their fees paid and are current. I'm not having a lot of confidence in the BLM system at this point.

I'm working on the mining claim updates today. Land Matters Members will be receiving their detailed reports and maps throughout this week.

Preliminary results are truly astonishing. More than 47,000 claims were closed by the BLM in the last two weeks. I'll provide more info as I sort out this mess.

You are welcome Coffeeguyzz.

Land Matters, nor any other source, provides the actual location on the ground of any mining claim. Other countries do that as a matter of public interest but in the United States you will need to get copies of the original location notices from the County to determine the intended location of the claim.

The BLM is an unreliable source for location notices. Although they have copies of the paperwork submitted to their case files there is no guarantee those copies represent mining claims as located on the ground.

For example - one of the largest and most popular of the claims managed by a large national club in California has never been recorded in the County but the BLM paperwork is up to date. Both California and Federal law governing mining claims are clear that if there is no timely (90 day) public record of the location made at the County Recorder the claim is void from day one. You would never know that if you were relying on the BLM case files for that claim. A similar situation occurs frequently with mining claim amendments.

The County Recorder is the only source of mining claim records, the BLM only has case files and they can not certify that those case filings match the required public record. The County Recorder can, and will, legally certify all their records.

Mining claims on public lands have been a right since 1866 but the BLM has only been involved with mining claims since 1976. When push comes to shove on mining claim ownership the BLM is required by the very first 1865 federal mining law to bow out. Their case files are not proof of ownership or location. A careful researcher will always rely on the public record.

For the last two years the BLM has CLOSED many thousands of mining claims on one day. These claims are the "Abandoned and Forfeited" mining claims that didn't file their annual requirement.

Last year the BLM closed 28,340 claims on November 17th.
The previous year the BLM closed 20,704 claims on November 17th.
At present there are 29,069 mining claims in the BLM database that are marked as not having paid their annual fees.

Land Matters Claims Advantage members have been receiving updates and maps on these claims scheduled for closure for the last month. If the past MLRS system is followed this year there will be more than 20,000 claims closed tomorrow. Those closed claims will be removed from the Land Matters Mining Claim Maps next week with our new claims update. Land Matters Claims Advantage Members will get a map of those closed claims for their use.

A smart prospector might find these closed claims maps useful. A forward looking prospector might see it's a great way to support the only FREE non profit mining claims mapping and educational charity organization.

2 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   Not sure if this is true but I was told that all the gold there belongs to the King (Charles) & prospecting & taking gold is against the law. I was told this by my friend who lives there.

The king owns everything. The Crown does not allow prospectors to keep or sell the gold they find but limited prospecting is allowed and legal as long as you get permission from the landowner and follow the very restrictive rules. Think California park rules except you have to dress nice, know how to bow and curtsy, can't touch actual dirt and never ever actually keep or sell the gold you find. No fires, no trash and no tools.

That's the law. The reality, as often is the case, is very different.

Individual "estates" in Scotland allow gold prospecting with permission. Usually permission involves paying for a permit. A permit to prospect for a year on Buccleuch Estate is 50 pounds. Same for Strathfillian. Baile an Or requires a permit and a reservation..

I'm puzzled. The Beta Hunt is a hardrock mine. I was under the impression to be called a nugget the gold had to be placer. All the other nuggets on the list of big nuggets came from placer deposits.

If hardrock deposits of gold could be called nuggets there are much larger masses uncovered in hardrock mines. There was a solid gold stope mined in the United Verde extension that topped out at nearly a ton.

Here's the link direct to the video Jim:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8utsK3NxjuI

You could start your own forum. It's about $50 a month to start. $150 a month and you can go big.

https://invisioncommunity.com/buy

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Works what way? Did I say how it works? The quote was just lifted from their website is all.

My bad Steve. I assumed you were replying to dirtman and mn90403's posts bemoaning the loss of valuable content. I didn't realize the wayback post was unconnected.

1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Search the history of over 823 billion web pages on the Internet.

https://archive.org

It doesn't really work that way for forum software Steve. The wayback machine archives webpages. Forum software rentals  like ipbhost (as opposed to webpage based forums) don't allow scraping of content. Try searching your own forum on wayback and you will see that individual posts are not archived. This hiding of content is a function of the forum hosting software and not the wayback machine.

Individual websites are archived but it's not as simple as it seems. A few years back I recreated Bill and Linda's website from wayback when they decided to take down their website. It took weeks of rewriting pages and searching for missing assets and that was a fairly simple website without javascript or php.

I imagine with an active forum software account you can download your forum content? I doubt it would be complete or usable to set up another forum but there might be enough there to set up a search system?

Yeah I don't think Bubba would like being in charge. He's a miner not a manager type. When it comes down to it Bubba knows the Hill better than any manager.

I've met Steve but I wouldn't say I know him. I do know the current owners of the Johnson. They are well known successful geologists in the mining business. They have discovered and mined some of the biggest deposits on earth - smart fellows. They have the Johnson and lease all of the State section to the east.  The Johnson and a few other famous mines are their retirement fun.

They have pulled some beautiful specimens from that mine since they bought it. The mine is rich but the owners don't really need to go to full mining/processing to make their money. The specie they mine is highly valued in the market.

It looks like Dilly Dilly is Bubba's thing. Bubba is a real miner with a family history of mining the Wickenburg area for a few generations. The man can move some dirt!

I don't know anything about the club, didn't even know it existed until this post. I imagine it's a combination of Bubba's claims on Rich Hill and maybe Casey Kelton's as well. If that is the situation there are some good claims - mostly on the Weaver side of the Hill.

6 hours ago, Don71 said:

BLM has the "AFFIDAVIT  OF  ANNUAL  ASSESSMENT  WORK" (Form 3830-004) expired as well.

County Recording Due by September 30th. Not Good!

The 'AFFIDAVIT  OF  ANNUAL  ASSESSMENT  WORK" (Form 3830-004) is not a mandatory form and isn't sufficient to meet your State's Affidavit requirements.

The ONLY required mining claim form is the Small miners Waiver 3830-02. Every other BLM form is "optional" and has this buried in the details:

Quote

This is an optional form that may be used to satisfy the requirements for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the provisions of 43 U.S.C. §1744 and 30 U.S.C. §28-28d and the regulations thereunder (43 CFR part 3835). Since local and State laws may vary, you should contact your local and State agencies where the claims are located to ensure all applicable laws and requirements are satisfied.

This 'AFFIDAVIT  OF  ANNUAL  ASSESSMENT  WORK" (Form 3830-004) form does not meet any state's requirements. Your State's laws determine what a valid Location Notice/ NOITH/ Affidavit consists of - NOT the BLM.

I would VERY STRONGLY SUGGEST that you never use any of the BLM forms but the federally required Small miners Waiver 3830-02 form.

For the other BLM "forms" follow your State's requirements and make up your own or use the form offered by your State if they have one (most do). Any of the required filings with the BLM but the Small Miners Waiver can be submitted in any way you want as long as they meet the basic legal requirements. Writing it out by hand on a plain piece of paper is adequate if it's readable.

You will find those legal requirements in your State's statutes governing mining - not the BLM or Federal regulations.

Here are the legally required Affidavit of Labor and NOI requirements in Arizona :

A. Before December 31 of any year in which the performance of annual labor or making improvements or the payment of claim maintenance fees on a mining claim is required, the person on whose behalf the work or improvement or payment was made, or the person's representative, knowing the facts, may make and record in the office of the county recorder of the county in which the claim is located an affidavit of annual work or an affidavit of claim maintenance fee payment.

B. The affidavit of annual work must state in substance the following:

State of Arizona, county of ____________________ ss: _________________________________, being duly sworn, deposes and says that: I am a citizen of the United States and at least eighteen years of age. I reside at ____________________, in _________________ county, Arizona. I am personally acquainted with the mining claim known as ___________________ mining claim, situated in _________________ mining district, ______________ county, Arizona, the location notice of which is recorded in the office of the county recorder of that county at [county recorder information]. Between the _____________ day of _______________, _________________, and the _______________ day of ___________________, ___________________, at least _________________________ dollars worth of work and improvements were done and performed on the claim, not including the location work of the claim. Such work and improvements were made by and at the expense of ___________________________, owners of the claim, for the purpose of complying with the laws of the United States pertaining to assessment or annual work, and _______________________________________ (here name the miners or persons who worked on the claim) were the persons who are employed by the owner and who labored on the claim, doing the work and improvements as follows: (Here describe the work done and add signature and verification.)

C. The affidavit of claim maintenance fee payment must state in substance the following:

State of Arizona, county of ____________________ ss: _________________________________, being duly sworn, deposes and says that: I am a citizen of the United States and at least eighteen years of age. I reside at ____________________, in ___________________ county, Arizona. I am personally acquainted with the mining claim known as ______________________ mining claim, situated in __________________ mining district, ______________ county, Arizona, the location notice of which is recorded in the office of the county recorder of that county at [county recorder information]. A claim maintenance fee of _________________________ dollars was paid by or at the expense of ___________________________, owners of the claim, instead of recording an affidavit of annual work for the purpose of complying with the laws of the United States and holding the claim. (Here add signature and verification.)

As you can see the BLM form doesn't cover most of the legal requirements in Arizona. You will find similar but different requirements in each state. To keep your claim valid and current you must follow your State's legal requirements.

Welcome Mommaofmany.

If you paid the annual fee this will not affect you or your claim.

The small miner's waiver is for people who own fewer than 10 claims and choose to do their annual labor rather than pay the maintenance fee. The form we are discussing is the required form for those who wish to declare themselves small miners for the upcoming mining year. It doesn't apply to owners who paid the fee.

Since the form is required to qualify as a small miner and yet is not available it leaves small miners with questions about their course of action and little time to resolve those questions, the form is due by August 31.

To be clear....

What happens (or is supposed to happen) when you submit an expired or invalid 3830-02 form is the BLM will send you a 60 day notice to correct the form problem or pay the annual fee. There are more than a few problems with that "solution" too but that's probably for another time.

8 hours ago, Don71 said:

The BLM in the Phoenix office said they will accept the expired form since the new version is not available.

Would they give that to you in writing? (That's a rhetorical question - they never put anything in writing)

Phoenix BLM is the same office that actively encouraged claim owners to save money by paying their maintenance fees before the the price was raised last time and then closed the claims that had not paid the full new fees. Phoenix office has one of the worst records when giving out bad information that endangers your claim.

Maybe the better question would be does the required small miners waiver form 3830-02 still exist? The OMB doesn't have the form listed and they are the only agency that approves those forms for use. The BLM doesn't have a valid form available. There is no current control number or approval date.

I smell a rat.

Do whatever you feel is right for yourself. Hopefully this is just the government stumbling over their shoelaces and everything will work out for the best for claim owners.

If you are maintaining your mining claim under a small miner's waiver you should be aware that the required Form (3830-02) due August 31 is not yet available.

Here is a link the official BLM version of the form on their website. As you can see it expired this past April.

https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/3830-002_0.pdf

The BLM is required to renew official forms every three years or the form becomes invalid. (Privacy Act, Paperwork Reduction Act) The currently available 3830-02 Form expired in April of this year. The BLM did put in a request for extension in March of this year but the paperwork never moved forward. In the last week or so the 3830-02 form has been removed from the approval process. It appears it is no longer on the list of BLM forms.

Here are the current results from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) the agency in charge of approving the form.

https://omb.report/search.php?terms=1004-0114

That is where you will see if the required 3830-02 form has been approved. It will be at the very bottom of the list. At present it isn't even listed as a valid form.

Some mining claims have been closed for submitting out of date forms. Technically the form has no value to the user or the BLM until the OMB approves the extension. This is a tricky situation.

The California BLM put a modified 3830-02 in their mining claims packet this year. You wouldn't get one of those unless you requested it. Even though the form hasn't been approved they pasted a "2024" over the top of the "2023" on the expired form. They didn't change the approval date so it's obviously bogus. Some state offices have been suggesting owners just cross out the "2023" and write in "2024". I would not suggest doing that, I won't get into the details here but as you can imagine forgery of federal documents to receive a benefit is frowned upon.

Here's what you need to watch out for with these forms. There is a block of type on the upper left corner and another on the upper right that together show that the form is current and valid. Here's an clipped example I made up of the top of the form with the critical numbers in red.

If the dates don't reflect the three year extension period (2023 - 2026) it's bogus.  If the form hasn't been approved by the OMB yet it doesn't matter if the numbers match it's bogus.

I've discussed this problem with quite a few worried miners and the only real advice I can give is be prepared to pay the fee???

There may some political and there are certainly some social aspects of the BLM's failure to produce this required form. Please let's respect our host's wishes and keep any discussion about this on the practical and informative side. No politics please.

Barry

Annual mining claim filings and/or payments are due at the BLM before the end of August. This is a must do for anyone with a mining claim that wants to keep it. Being as this is mandatory government stuff it can be a bit confusing to jump through the hoops.

Every year Land Matters puts out a flow chart and explanation sheet in PDF form to help you meet your obligations on time. It's free of course and if you want feel free to share it with other miners and prospectors.

It's pretty easy to tell where your property boundaries are. Just look at your Title.

Cities and States can't change ownership rights or boundaries without paying the landowner for the property loss (5th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States).

Most public roads, sidewalks, utilities etc. are established as public easements but the government does not buy or own the land underneath the easement.

Sometimes when developers are trying to get approval for a new housing development they will sweeten the pot and dedicate the streets to the city or county.  The other exception is when a road is desired but a private property is in the way. In that situation the city/county/state has to purchase the property.

It's unwise to assume that because your city bought a property that it becomes public property. In almost all cases the property becomes the private holding of the municipal corporation to do with as they wish. This includes parks, municipal buildings and property.

More than likely you can get away with it in some cities. 30 years ago it wasn't such an issue if you didn't bring a backhoe or smell weird. I don't know about Reno specifically but larger towns probably aren't going to like it much.

That being said the city doesn't own the land. The city has an easement for public passage and probably some utilities too. The land itself, and all the goodies buried in it belong to the landowner. So the city can't give you permission to take what you dig and the landowner probably doesn't want to risk having the city complain about their easement being dug up.

It's a tricky situation wherever you go but I imagine in the end it's going to be more about local attitudes than what's legal or who owns what.

Hotel Key fob.

2 hours ago, GotAU? said:

Hi Clay- so I was browsing over the maps and tried to use the PLSS overlay on the claims sections and it wasn’t showing the 2nd levels -also the section labels - was I doing something wrong? I’ll post a screenshot if you need one. Thanks!

*I really like the updates, keep them coming!

Try zooming in a little GotAU. The maps show more detail the closer you zoom in, sections get labels and closer still and the quarter quarters will show and the quarter quarter sections will get labels as you zoom in a little more. this helps prevent confusing clutter as you zoom out.

You can always get the full information for any active feature, whether it's showing or not, by using the "i" query button and clicking on your area of interest.

Here it is summer already and the BLM has removed their mining claims maps - again. They say they think they will be back online on the 26th. 🐕🐴

For all those hoping to do some research before a weekend of prospecting Land Matters updated their Mining Claim Maps this week. These are the most up to date claims maps available anywhere. Heck they may be the only current free mining claim maps available anywhere.

The Land Matters maps have more information than the BLM maps and they are the only maps that have the claim owner names. Anyone who has researched a potential prospecting area understands how important it is to be able to look up the claims paperwork and you can't do that without a name.

So if you have been wondering how to check out that new area while the BLM is down again just wander on over to Land Matters and take a look around. We are always up and running and have been every day since 2014.