If the claim is for a valuable mineral can you sell other minerals or specimens that are valuable but have been withdrawn from claiming? Like for instance selling oxides from from mine dump for solar flow battery. Or selling talc from gold mining? Just some examples off the top of my head.
The brief answer is no. The mining claimant owns all of the valuable minerals found on their claim. If there is a deposit of valuable minerals that could cause a prudent man to believe a reasonable profit could be had by mining the valuable mineral deposit then the mining claim has a basis in law.
It works like this, if the mining claim is based on a valuable gold deposit the claimant can keep and sell all the locatable minerals associated with their discovery. While mining gold it is not unusual to mine a significant portion of copper, silver, zinc, lead, fluorite, tin, molybdenum, tungsten or other locatable minerals. All those valuable minerals belong to the claimant even though the claim's validity is based on the gold deposit.
If there are significant portions of the deposit that consists of the non locatable minerals they must be consumed as part of the ore refining or left on the waste pile. Non locatable minerals such as quartz etc. are useful in some smelting processes, iron and sulfur is usually converted to waste mineral on the heap. Smart miners understand that a gold deposit with high grade quartz and fluorite will produce better smelter receipts than ore without those refractory materials. Even though quartz is not a locatable mineral a certain amount of the quartz can be used as an often needed flux additive. Quartz is not a salable end product but it is useful in refining ore.
The exception in your example is Talc which is a locatable mineral. Oxides and sulfides of valuable minerals are also subject to location. Essentially if you can prove that a mineral deposit is valuable and not one of the withdrawn or reserved minerals you can make a mining claim based on that deposit.
All of this revolves around provable real value in the market. Just finding gold in a stream does not prove a valuable mineral deposit but it may be enough evidence to justify making a mining location and exploring for a valuable deposit.
Here is a real world example to bring these concepts of locatable and valuable together. All this stuff actually happened but I'm giving you the brief readers digest version here:
A guy discovers a deposit of really nice pumice in New Mexico. He claims the pumice deposit and begins selling the pumice he mines. Pumice is reserved for sale by the United States so the BLM declares the claim invalid.
The guy with the pumice deposit is not happy with the decision because he is really cleaning up on pumice sales. The reason he's making so much money selling this particular pumice is because it's the finest pumice in the world for making stone washed jeans. The jean makers pay big bucks for this particular pumice because they get a nice even finish with minimal loss. Good stuff for that popular stone washed look.
The claimant appeals the BLM decision to close the claim and wins because he can prove that his particular deposit of pumice is unique and valuable. Big win right? As you can see if the pumice deposit wasn't proven unique and valuable the claim closure would have been confirmed.
The pumice location goes into high gear supplying the jean makers with this special pumice. A couple of times the Forest Service complains that some of the deposit isn't jean grade and is still being sold. Remember ordinary pumice is a salable mineral not a locatable mineral. Every time the claim owner sells pumice that might be a little lower grade than his stone washed standard he gets a bill from the Forest Service for the non-locatable minerals he sold. Lots of niggling in there about finished pumice size and grade. Not fun but probably sorta kind of fair.
The Forest Service really wants to get rid of the pumice claims so they declare a mineral withdrawal. They know that the pumice claims will be challenged again. After much haggling and hearings the pumice claims pass the mineral exam so the pumice mining continues. The pumice owner is happy so what could go wrong?
To make a long story much shorter the jean companies come up with a much cheaper system for the stone washed jean look that doesn't require this unique pumice. The pumice deposit is still rare and unique but the commercial value is virtually nil. The claims are now based on a common non locatable mineral and are closed. End of story except for the last bill sent by the Forest Service for the salable common mineral pumice that was mined and processed after the the jean companies stopped buying.
Claimants own
all the valuable minerals on their claim. They don't own any of the common or reserved minerals. Selling common or reserved minerals from the public lands without a permit or contract is mineral theft. Selling common minerals from a mining claim will get you billed for the value of the minerals as well as a citation for mineral theft. If you want to sell common minerals just get a contract with the management agency and pay the fees. As ratled pointed out it's a pretty simple process.
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