Question for Rock Hounds

[Laura Zone 10]

How hard is it to 'stake a claim' so that you can 'pan for gold' or 'mine for gems' on a piece of land:

In Colorado
In North Carolina
In Florida

[SLFarmMI]

As I understand it (and it has been a while since I've been out "rock hounding"), on public land only and only if no one else holds the mineral rights to the particular plot of land you want to explore on. You need to (unless the law has changed) file a claim for mining rights. I think you do this through the Bureau of Land Management.

[AmericanStand]

You file the claim with the managing agency on federal land that would be the BLM.
The rules and the agency vary on state lands.

[AmericanStand]

You don't need to file a clim to prospect. You file a claim to reserve the minerals for production. The key is to find unclaimed land with mineralization.

[frogmammy]

Probably cheapest method for gold is to join a prospecting club...they have members only prospecting.

Mon

[texican]

Little bit difficult in Florida, unless you're looking on the tiny slivers of public land.... to my knowledge, few gems in the that area.... NPS is off limits... you'd be looking at National Forests up in the panhandle...

North Carolina? National forests only.

Colorado, any public land outside of NPS units...

You need to get gps coordinates, place markers on the ground (most common is pvc driven in the ground or 'supported by rocks') with your information on it.... then carry this claim to the nearest agency controlling that piece of land, and they can tell if you there are already claims on it. There are permits, and fees, and yearly maintenance fees.....

If you watch "Prospectors" on the Weather Channel (of all places) you can learn about 'claims'....