Prospectors Research Tools

[Clay Diggins]

Prospector's Research Tools

I haven't been around much this summer and with the desert prospecting season just starting it's a good time to show off what I did this long hot summer. I have been working with a few friends on a new non-profit organization to give you a single place for all your land research.

The result is MyLandMatters.Org. This is the gateway to your land information repository. Maps, books, tutorials, community resources and quality, easy-to-access information about the land around you.

No ads, No memberships, No log-in required.

This past spring while sitting around with some friends we came to the conclusion that most of the important and useful things that we want to know about the land around us was difficult to locate and tough to understand. Despite the many sources of information there was no single place to find the information available.

We decided we could do something about that. We agreed to put our time and energy into creating a single place that anyone could find the answers to questions about the land.

It's a big project. It has taken a lot of work, learning and resources to get things started. But after six months of long days, and more than a few nights, the Land Matters repository is ready for you to use.

Land Matters is all about the land. You can find Land Status Maps, Active Mining Claims Maps (with live direct links into the current LR2000 claims database), A great collection of mining books, Land Laws, Geology books and maps, Forest Travel Plans and a whole lot more.

Land Matters is for land users. Our collections are guided by community input. That's you. Let us know what kind of material you would like to find in our Library or a particular map you would like to see. Help us build Land Matters to best serve the community.

We've already got a lot of things that prospectors have been asking for - the claims maps alone were almost universally requested. Land Matters isn't just for prospectors and miners. But you can help prioritize our efforts and drive the content of Land Matters. Prospectors now have a unique opportunity to help guide and build an information resource designed by prospectors and for prospectors.

We are just getting started filling the Library but there will be hundreds of books, maps and items added in the next few weeks. We've even got a Newsletter so you can get regular updates about new additions to the Land Matters repository.

Check it out and let me know what you think. Here are a few good places to start:

Tutorials - the current focus is on understanding Land Status.
Maps - We all like maps and we've got some you will love.
Library - search for something.

Heavy Pans
Barry & Leigh

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[Oregon Viking]

Land Matters been working on bringing some useful new tools to our Recreational Maps and resources.

Since we have some friends riding the 5,500 mile cross country coast to coast off road Transamerica Trail on dirt bikes we thought this would be a good opportunity to add a really cool and relatively unknown set of off road trails.

Visit the new TransAm Trail Map. This trail is suitable for mountain and dirt bikes as well as 4 wheel drive vehicles.

gpsKevin plotted these multiple routes that include the Main trails (blue) - EZ alternate trails (green) - and Advanced (oh cr^p!) trails (red). (Thanks Kevin, great work! ) The waypoints layer shows gas, lodging, stores and scenic sites along the way.

Of course Land Matters includes Land Status, Wilderness and PLSS layers along with the usual base layers so you can get a detailed view of the terrain and features along the way.

Even if you don't plan to travel cross county off highway you should check out this map. Adventuring is still alive and well and the simple fact that a set of trails like this can exist today points to a freedom seldom celebrated or understood by those who, for whatever reason, can't get out and enjoy this wonderful country.

Heavy Pans

That is so cool!! I love trail riding. I'am a thumper lover. What bikes are they riding? Areas? Pics? Website/Facebook link? Transamerica trail? I did not know. Wow.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Family Maps of Hinds County, Mississippi, Deluxe Edition - Grab it through Amazon!

[Clay Diggins]

That is so cool!! I love trail riding. I'am a thumper lover. What bikes are they riding? Areas? Pics? Website/Facebook link? Transamerica trail? I did not know. Wow.

Rather not share their personal info but they are riding 650's (Razor and a KLR) from Santa Monica to Maryland Coast. Side trip to Grand Canyon and a day riding rock around Moab. 10 days total finishing up today. They are some tired sore puppies but what a blast eh?

Heavy Pans

 

[Clay Diggins]

Check out how the trail goes through the wilderness units in Southeastern California and Southwestern Nevada. The greenies get around the roadless rule for wilderness designation by making multiple "units" with the existing roads between them. Cheesy manipulation of the Wilderness Act but that's good gold ground. A smart prospector might take advantage of those road corridors.

Heavy Pans

 

[Oregon Viking]

Check out how the trail goes through the wilderness units in Southeastern California and Southwestern Nevada. The greenies get around the roadless rule for wilderness designation by making multiple "units" with the existing roads between them. Cheesy manipulation of the Wilderness Act but that's good gold ground. A smart prospector might take advantage of those road corridors.

Heavy Pans

Ahhh yes. I can see a folding sluice and/or a Garrett super sluice pan fitting in my bike "gear"

 

[StreamlineGold]

Amazing site bro, that shaves hours off of searches

 

[Jeff95531]

You are welcome Jeff.

You have an income? All of mine is outgoing!

I just tried the newsletter form and it seems to be working fine? You should receive an email to confirm your subscription.

You can still get the California Treasures DVD HERE.

Heavy Pans

Done! CA DVD...Happy Birthday to me. Thanks to my Mom for letting me pay it forward.

 

[SLNugget]

HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO LAND MATTERS​

Congrats to Leigh and Barry and their volunteer crew for their hard work bringing Land Matters to us miners and prospectors. Thanks for all the great information.

 

[Clay Diggins]

HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO LAND MATTERS​

Congrats to Leigh and Barry and their volunteer crew for their hard work bringing Land Matters to us miners and prospectors. Thanks for all the great information.

Thanks Stan! It's nice someone noticed.

In the last year Land Matters has served up more than 3 million requests for more than 700 Gigabytes of books, maps, videos and tutorials. We are growing in visitors and files served every day.

It's been a long hard year for the Land Matters volunteers but we are all very happy with the public's response and the huge popularity of the site.

With the continued support of Land Matters users like Stan next year promises to be even better.

Heavy Pans

 

[delnorter]

Barry and Leigh, thank you and your employee/volunteers for the huge undertakings and successes at creating a truly user friendly land information system available to all.

It's my pleasure to have met you folks (albeit long distance) and to have benefited from your efforts.

Thank you,
Mike

 

[goldenIrishman]

I'd also like to congratulate Barry and the rest of the team at LandMatters on their first anniversary! This has proven out to be a great tool and it's getting better all the time. It's already helped many a miner to step up their game and become better at finding the gold.

In case there are some that haven't figured this trick out yet, here is one way to take the site out in the field with you! Between lack of service and tiny phone screens I had to figure out something!

Zoom into an area you are interested in. Use your favorite map type of view (road, topo, aerial etc). Print out a copy of your map without any layers turned on. Then turn the layers you need on one at a time without changing the position of the map. Print out these layers as well. Do up any notes in WordPad or any other word processing program you wish and then turn the maps over (after they're good and dry if using a jet printer) and print the notes right on the back of the map! Place in a folder and you've got LandMatters to go.

I've found that some of the layers display better on different base maps. If you have the PLSS layer turned on, you can even use the grid as registration marks for transparent overlay alignment. By using transparent overlays, some of those layers that don't print out well on the maps are easier to use because the layer isn't muddling it all up.

 

[delnorter]

GoldenIrishman, good info. Another neat thing you can do is: Take a photo with your cell phone of the computer screen or a hard copy map. You can then view in the field, zoom in and out. I use this often while hunting in remote areas.

Mike

 

[goldenIrishman]

LOL... Though you can take pictures with my phone, trying to see them on that tiny screen is another matter. To say mine is a "Smart Phone" is giving it way too much credit!

 

[Clay Diggins]

Barry and Leigh, thank you and your employee/volunteers for the huge undertakings and successes at creating a truly user friendly land information system available to all.

It's my pleasure to have met you folks (albeit long distance) and to have benefited from your efforts.

Thank you,
Mike

Thanks Mike. That means a lot coming from you.

I'm still working on those field note. Hopefully we will have those and more available before Thanksgiving.

Heavy Pans
Barry

 

[Clay Diggins]

I've found that some of the layers display better on different base maps. If you have the PLSS layer turned on, you can even use the grid as registration marks for transparent overlay alignment. By using transparent overlays, some of those layers that don't print out well on the maps are easier to use because the layer isn't muddling it all up.

There's a way to deal with map layers getting "muddled up" Jeff.

Here's a TIP

Land Matters Maps offer more than just which layers show. You can actually control how they look when they display together!

Lets say the Land Manager layer colors are getting lost on an aerial view because the color tones are too similar. Just right click on the Land Manager layer name and choose "Transparency" from the drop down list. A slider will appear. Move the slider to the left to make the colors stronger or to the right to make them more transparent.

You can do this on every map layer including the base layers. Set the different layers transparency sliders where you want to make a map that's customized to your needs. You can change them as often as you need. The map will remember your settings as long as you don't close that map or reload the page.

Try making a customized map display that fits your needs Jeff. I think you will find you can put a lot more information on your map using the custom Transparency feature.

Heavy Pans

 

[goldenIrishman]

Dadburn it! I forgot all about the transparency controls. I'll have to play around with it a bit and see if I can get all the layers I want for a certain area all on one printout. While I haven't had problems viewing the layers on the computer screen, when they print out they were not as easy to read. Thanks for reminding me about the feature. "Old Timers" must be setting in on my end!

 

[Reed Lukens]

Lay the historical map over the topo, then the current, set the transperencies for over the topo so you can see all the layers, and this is my favorite GIS setting.

 

[Goldwasher]

It cost me...but having a galaxy s5...WATERPROOF.....is awesome..with an otter box case and a huge screen...it is a blessing in the field. There are lots of places with servic so looking at a large Ariel photo in real time that shows your current location...well ITS THE SH.......well u know....not for reliance in any way just to be a bird over head...with boots on the ground..HECK YA....I should build my self some maps and save them for field use...

THANKS SO MUCH BARRY. For website....and thanks to all the guys here for the various input ideas and motivations!!!!!

 

[Clay Diggins]

Mid October Mining Claims Map update

The mid October Land Matters Mining Claims Maps update is live. It went online this morning.

You can always see how current the claims information is by clicking on any section on the map with active claims while using the i information button. The actual date of the claims update is in the last column on the right of the claims information result window.

Quite a few prospectors have been asking for closed claims information. We have been working on getting you some better information than just a list of all the old claims in a section.

Closed claims information can be useful if you sort through the information for the gems. We've figured out a way to make that a lot easier than it ever has been. Watch the site for more information in the next few days.

Heavy Pans

 

[goldenIrishman]

Cool! I'll have to go see what's new with my "favorite" LLC from Connecticut.

EDIT: Well no changes on their claims (YET) and I'm wondering how long it's going to be before the BLM gets everything caught up in their case files.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Sorry if anyone had problems with the Land Matters maps or search function this afternoon. We had to rebuild our backup server in Houston and the databases were taken offline for several minutes.

I noticed a bunch of people were in the middle of using maps when the updates happened. I apologize if you were one of those that lost your research maps for a while.

It took a while but it's done now and as a bonus Land Matters is back up and running and is running faster and smoother than ever before.

Heavy Pans