Tommy
Administrator
Member since January 2013
Posts: 12,665
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Post by Tommy on Jun 6, 2020 9:58:55 GMT -5
Recently while in Idaho and eastern Oregon visiting the Owyhee's and Graveyard Point I was struck by the amount of claim markers we encountered - the vast majority of which were laying on their sides for whatever reason - anything from vandalism, to weather, to sheer neglect I would imagine. It's understandable that we would encounter claimed areas in these heavily trafficked rockhounding mecca areas but again the amount of posts vs. the visual activity at the site was a bit shocking to be honest. We are fairly responsible rockhounds and we do our best to give claims a wide berth but it's troubling not knowing what is real and what is not.
So my general question is how does a person go about checking the validity of a mining claim? Is this something that has to be done in person - ie: walk in the local BLM office? If that is the case what would you need when you get there, will the GPS coordinates suffice? I've Googled it several times in the past few years and nothing really comes up on this specific point of interest. I keep hearing there is a BLM website that can do this but I'll be damned if I can find it and I've searched and searched.
It almost seems to me that filing a new claim is a more well-defined process than checking to see if an existing claim is still valid.
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pizzano
Cave Dweller
Member since February 2018
Posts: 1,390
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Post by pizzano on Jun 6, 2020 11:19:33 GMT -5
Recently while in Idaho and eastern Oregon visiting the Owyhee's and Graveyard Point I was struck by the amount of claim markers we encountered - the vast majority of which were laying on their sides for whatever reason - anything from vandalism, to weather, to sheer neglect I would imagine. It's understandable that we would encounter claimed areas in these heavily trafficked rockhounding mecca areas but again the amount of posts vs. the visual activity at the site was a bit shocking to be honest. We are fairly responsible rockhounds and we do our best to give claims a wide berth but it's troubling not knowing what is real and what is not. So my general question is how does a person go about checking the validity of a mining claim? Is this something that has to be done in person - ie: walk in the local BLM office? If that is the case what would you need when you get there, will the GPS coordinates suffice? I've Googled it several times in the past few years and nothing really comes up on this specific point of interest. I keep hearing there is a BLM website that can do this but I'll be damned if I can find it and I've searched and searched. It almost seems to me that filing a new claim is a more well-defined process than checking to see if an existing claim is still valid. Try this site.........:
Click Services first........go to land records and then poke around the meridian map. There are several methods/links here to obtain legal records, many of which are public, but you'll find there may be a cost associated with the information. A few of the map links will get you in the ball park if you have State Plane Coordinates, plat region, quadrant, section info, map recorded data like parcel #'s, Deed #'s and claim #'s.............It's not an easy task working with BLM (not black lives matter), data resources. Unless you're in the industry, much of the terminology and descriptions used by them will be Greek to the average person.....they have intentionally made public record information retrieval a world of their own, they are very much like a private club.......secret hand shakes and all........lol
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inbtb
Cave Dweller
Member since May 2016
Posts: 351
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Post by inbtb on Jun 7, 2020 22:24:23 GMT -5
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