How Do I Avoid Claim Jumping?, Seeking the best techniques for prospecting "open" land Options

[English]

Hi everybody.
HELP!
What's the easiest and most accurate way to view or to plot active mining claims? My goal is to preview claims from a birds-eye-view on a map so that while I'm prospecting I will not trespass on mineral rights. Geocommunicator.com is not accurate, title master platts don't show un-patented claims and LR2000 provides serial numbers that when entered into Geocommunicator.com gives all coordinates (each corner of the claim) in "decimal" format (not degree, minutes and seconds). The area I'm prospecting shows a claim density of 50 - 100 claims and I KNOW there has to be an easier way to identify/view claim bounderies without me:
1) Converting decimal coordinated to degrees, minutes and seconds (for EACH corner of EACH claim).
2) Ploting those coordinates on a topographical map.
In other words...
What's the best technique for prospecting while at the same time avoid trespassing?
THANKS!

[CP]

Hi everybody.
HELP!
What's the easiest and most accurate way to view or to plot active mining claims? My goal is to preview claims from a birds-eye-view on a map so that while I'm prospecting I will not trespass on mineral rights. Geocommunicator.com is not accurate, title master platts don't show un-patented claims and LR2000 provides serial numbers that when entered into Geocommunicator.com gives all coordinates (each corner of the claim) in "decimal" format (not degree, minutes and seconds). The area I'm prospecting shows a claim density of 50 - 100 claims and I KNOW there has to be an easier way to identify/view claim bounderies without me:
1) Converting decimal coordinated to degrees, minutes and seconds (for EACH corner of EACH claim).
2) Ploting those coordinates on a topographical map.
In other words...
What's the best technique for prospecting while at the same time avoid trespassing?
THANKS!

Hi English,

Great question you've posted, and very important as well! Whether one wishes to find a spot to claim or just a fresh place to prospect without claim jumping someone elses.

For the benefit of others who might be wondering this as well...lets back up to the very begining of the research and why.


After one's found an area of geologic interest to them, ie.... gold, silver, diamonds, or lode deposit veins, placers etc. Then the next question is.... "Where can I look for deposits now?" We of course do not wish to claim jump on anyone elses claims and we may or may not be looking to file claims in the future. So, how do we find these "spots" without the claims? At this point if we don't want to file claims or if we do......the next step still applies to both, we need to find an "open area" without those claims to even prospect.

Now on the scale of 50-100 claims this would seem like a huge task but that sounds like a larger area of research English has in mind here and he may have been working on his research for sometime. For those just starting out, this may only be one or two specific spots you've been around and wondered about.
There are several sources of information needed to find the "land status" of each in question. IE is it BLM, NF or privately owned land.
Once you've found the right land status maps to give you a general idea then of course you will need more detail on each. Again, coming from several different sources at federal and local offices to check and reverify all findings from each too.

Along with this public information, there are many, many, many laws/codes to learn along the way for each step begining with our right to prospect and finding new deposits all the way up to large scale mining operations. With new ammendments being continually added every year.

The long and short of it is.....there is no one answer for all research. There are so many factors that could play into a specific piece. The county offices and BLM will have any location claims recorded on record which can be checked prior to prospecting to make sure there are no claims. Try choosing the best locals in your prospects and plan a day of research at that counties offices prior to prospecting, check out the best ones (geologically of course) and go from there.
There isn't an accurate way that I know of to plot that many claims at once with any single source of information either....just have to plot through them very diligently one at a time with the research.

Of course joining the ColoradoProspector club would be a great advantage, as we all try to help each other learn specifics about that very type of research question as well as many others.......
In reality, this information (and the lack of it accurately on the net) is exactly why the CP club was started. If you ever attend any club outings, we also concentrate discussions during the events toward these topics too.

Once you've got the research completed and all is good.......GET ON OUT THERE AND MAKE YOUR DISCOVERIES! GOOD LUCK!


CP