Placer Claim

A placer claim is a mining claim for minerals that are not in their original place. Where a lode claim covers a vein or rock in place, a placer claim covers material that has been moved, broken down, or deposited in beds.

What is located as a placer

Under 43 CFR 3832.21, placer claims are for minerals that are:

• River sands or gravels bearing gold or valuable detrital minerals
• Hosted in soils, alluvium, eluvium, colluvium, talus, or other rock not in its original place
• Bedded gypsum, limestone, cinders, pumice, and similar mineral deposits
• Mineral-bearing brine not subject to the mineral leasing acts, where a Mining Law mineral is the primary valuable mineral

Building stone deposits must by law be located as placer claims (30 U.S.C. 161). Common varieties of sand, gravel, stone, pumice, pumicite, and cinders were removed from the Mining Law in 1955. BLM sells those by contract or free-use permit, and they cannot be located.

Size limits

• An individual placer claim may not exceed 20 acres (43 CFR 3832.22).
• An association placer claim may not exceed 160 acres, and each person or business entity in the association may locate up to 20 acres.
• Reaching the full 160 acres takes at least eight co-locators. Three co-locators, for example, may locate no more than 60 acres.
• The names of other persons may not be used as dummy locators.

Shape and description

Where the land has been surveyed, a placer claim must conform as near as practicable to the rectangular subdivisions of the public land surveys (30 U.S.C. 35). The regulations require placer claims to be described by aliquot part and complete lots, and a location by one or two persons must fit within the boundaries of a square 40-acre parcel (43 CFR 3832.12). Each 10-acre aliquot part of the claim must be mineral-in-character.

Discovery

"Your placer claim is not valid until you have made a discovery" (43 CFR 3832.21). Discovery means the claimant has found a valuable mineral deposit.

Recording and fees

• Record the notice or certificate of location with BLM and the local recording office by the 90th day after the date of location.
• The one-time location fee is $49.
• The annual maintenance fee is $200 for each 20 acres of the placer claim or portion thereof, due on or before September 1. A 160-acre association placer owes $1,600 a year.

Selling an association placer

An association placer claim may be transferred at any time to an equal or greater number of claimants. Transferring it to fewer claimants requires either that a valuable mineral deposit was discovered before the transfer, or that the acreage be reduced on notice from BLM to meet the 20-acre-per-locator limit (43 CFR 3833.33).

Support ground

Since 1960 the holder of a placer claim may include up to 5 acres of nonmineral land used for mining or processing in a patent application (30 U.S.C. 42). An independent or custom mill site may not be used to process material from placer claims.

Researching a placer claim

The acreage recorded and the fee paid have to agree. A placer claim recorded at 40 acres owes $400 a year, not $200, so a payment history at the 20-acre rate is a problem to run down. For an association placer, the number of locators on the original location has to support the acreage claimed.