Mineral Rights

Mineral rights are rights that attach to the minerals in land rather than to the surface. The BLM Glossary of Surveying and Mapping Terms defines them in one line: "Rights which attach only to mineral deposits." Mineral title asks who owns the minerals (see Mineral Title). Mineral rights ask what the holder may do.

Federal minerals come in three kinds

BLM's mining claims brochure lists "three basic types of minerals on federal lands":

1. "Locatable minerals (subject to the Mining Law of 1872, as amended)"
2. "Leasable minerals (subject to the various Mineral Leasing Acts)"
3. "Salable minerals (subject to mineral materials disposed of under the Materials Act of 1947, as amended)"

Locatable minerals are taken up by locating a mining claim (see Locatable Minerals). Leasable minerals are developed under a federal lease, which the BLM glossary describes as authorizing "the development and production of certain leasable minerals from public lands" (see Mineral Lease).

The rights of a mining claimant

The Mining Law provides that "all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, shall be free and open to exploration and purchase" (30 U.S.C. 22). A lode locator who complies with the law has "the exclusive right of possession and enjoyment of all the surface included within the lines of their locations, and of all veins, lodes, and ledges throughout their entire depth, the top or apex of which lies inside of such surface lines" (30 U.S.C. 26; see Apex and Extralateral Rights). For mining claims located after July 23, 1955, 30 U.S.C. 612 limits surface use to "prospecting, mining or processing operations and uses reasonably incident thereto."

These are possessory rights, not ownership. The Congressional Research Service puts it this way in report R48166: "A claimant with an unpatented claim has rights to explore and extract minerals within the claim but has no ownership right to the land itself." The rights also depend on a discovery. BLM's brochure says the rights of a mining claim "protect against a challenge by the United States and other claimants only after the discovery of a valuable mineral deposit."

Mineral rights and the surface owner

Where minerals are severed from the surface, the surface owner does not hold them. On Stock Raising Homestead Act land, BLM tells the surface owner, "you do not have the right to sell the mineral resources," though "Generally, the owner of the surface estate may use, without the benefit of a sales contract or permit, minimal amounts of mineral materials for their personal use within the boundaries of the surface estate."

Why it matters in mineral title research

• The type of mineral decides which records to search. Locatable minerals lead to mining claim records, leasable minerals to lease records.
• A mining claim's rights exist only on land open to location and only while the mining claim is maintained, so the land status and the BLM case record are part of any answer about who holds the right to mine.
• Private mineral rights are governed by the deeds and leases that created them, under the law of the state where the land lies.