Good question Jeff.
When I wrote about "public lands" I was referring to lands that belong to the people of this country. These are often called Federal lands. Public lands don't include State or municipal lands, including State, city, county or regional parks. Usually the public lands are managed by either the BLM or the Forest Service although there are exceptions.
All public lands are open to location and claim if they are not either claimed already or specifically "withdrawn from entry". Withdrawn from entry means the land has been temporarily put off limits to claiming by an administrative order or permanently put of limits to claiming by an Act of Congress.
Examples of areas permanently off limits to claiming are National Parks and Wilderness areas. There are other types of mineral withdrawal that are not absolutely off limits. Here are a couple of examples:
1. In some areas there have been "powersite" withdrawals. These are common in the Pacific Northwest and California. They are usually for a dam proposal or flood control. You can usually claim those lands after a review by the Secretary of the Interior. A lot of the claims on the major rivers in California are on these kind of withdrawal.
2. Much of the private land in the West has minerals that are still owned by the public. On those private lands it is sometimes possible to prospect and make a claim after you have notified the land owner and posted a bond. Rarely does private land come with the mineral rights but not all private land fits this category.
Most mineral withdrawals only restrict claiming. Prospecting is still OK, you just can't make a claim or keep anyone else from prospecting. The Greaterville withdrawal fits in this category.
Each mineral withdrawal has it's own stated purpose, time limits and restrictions. You have to read each withdrawal order to see just what has been withdrawn and how long the withdrawal lasts. I've studied a lot of these withdrawal orders. I've only seen one withdrawal that prohibited prospecting but there might be others.
The biggest withdrawals are all open to prospecting - the wilderness areas! Right in the Wilderness Act itself it states that all wilderness has to remain open to prospecting. That's a lot of open untouched land.
Although mineral withdrawals are a great opportunity for prospecting there is a lot more unclaimed public lands open than there are withdrawals. The Greaterville gold fields are a good example. There are about 3,200 acres in the withdrawn area but there is even more land than that still unclaimed outside of the withdrawal yet still in producing gold territory. Some of that unclaimed land has better gold than the already claimed areas.
You might think that is because Greaterville is relatively unknown but there are lands open to prospecting and claim even in the best known areas. I map out the land status of hundreds of square miles of mineral lands each year, including more than a thousand claim locations. There are always open areas wherever I've looked.
A good example is Rich Hill in Arizona. Big nuggets are found there every month in season and have been for 150 years. It's one of the most popular prospecting destinations in the West. Before I mapped that area I was told by everyone that "it's all claimed up". Well it wasn't and it still isn't. When we released the Rich Hill map there were eleven claims made right on Gold Hill itself within the month. Three years later and there is still unclaimed land on that famous Hill. It's never "all claimed up".
In my mind there is no excuse for prospecting another man's claim. There is much more land available for prospecting than land that has already been claimed. Between mineral withdrawals, wilderness areas and the much bigger amount of unclaimed public lands there are multiple opportunities for the prospectors who do minimal research before they go out.
your Avatar should totally be revoked
