REAL-WORLD SCOUTING
Where we look, and what it costs.
We work real mineral ground. This page is the honest version of how that works in Maine: the state's own claims map, the state's own occurrence database, the actual statute that governs a permit and a claim, and what each step costs. Every figure here comes from a primary source, including the $20 permit fee written into the statute.
WHAT THE STATE DATA ACTUALLY SHOWS
0
active claims statewide
The Maine Geological Survey's own live claims service returns zero active exploration claim areas and zero active stakes. All 4,588 recorded claim areas are historical or expired. The ground is open.
273
claim maps digitised
The Maine Mining Bureau's claim sheets were scanned, georeferenced and digitised in 2021 under a USGS preservation grant, so the historic claim outlines are available as map data rather than only as paper.
1,085
documented mineral sites
The state publishes every documented mineral occurrence with coordinates, commodity, workings and development status. This is the actual scouting surface — 213 of those sites sit in the two-county belt we are working.
1958–1985
active claim era
Claim filings peak in 1958 and run through the mid-1980s, with a second wave around 1980–1985 that names major operators. That wave is the reason the historic outlines exist at all.
THE RULES — 12 MRS ch. 201-A
What a permit and a claim actually require
Exploration permit
$20 / year
12 MRS §549-B(1). An individual over 18 may apply to the Director of the Survey. The permit applies to state-owned lands only and expires at midnight on the next June 30th. Renewable each year for the same fee, same number.
Minimum claim size
20 acres
12 MRS §549-B(3). A claim may not be smaller than 20 acres, unless only a smaller area of state land is available in that parcel. Statewide, the median historical claim ran roughly 10–15 acres, so the present 20-acre floor is stricter than the old law.
Staking requirements
4 posts + marked lines
Each corner needs a post or permanent monument at least 4 ft tall and 4 in thick, carrying the locator's name, their permit number and the staking date. Boundary lines must be painted on trees and the underbrush trimmed; where there is no brush, by stone piles or pickets.
Annual registration
only above $25,000/yr
12 MRS §550. Registration with the Director is required only when total exploration expenses in a calendar year exceed $25,000 on private, leased or otherwise acquired lands. Below that threshold there is no state registration duty.
Mining leases / royalties
separate instrument
12 MRS §549-B. Removing minerals to market requires a mining lease, and royalties are paid to the State for the right to remove minerals from state land. Environmental rules apply on top of all of this and are not waived by holding a permit.
Prohibited outright
all State Parks
Mineral collecting and removal of anything natural is strictly prohibited in every State Park. This is separate from the exploration-permit framework and cannot be permitted around.
Statute text: Maine Revised Statutes Title 12, chapter 201-A, subchapter 3 (Mining on State Lands, §549–§549-C) and subchapter 4 (§550). Non-statutory procedure: Maine Geological Survey, “Mineral Exploration and Mining on State Lands.”
PUBLIC LAND — THE PART THAT IS GENUINELY CONFUSING
Maine has a mixed public-land system, and that is the source of most of the confusion. It is not one thing:
- Public reserved lands — roughly 450,000 acres plus the ocean floor to three miles and the bottoms of all lakes over 10 acres. The Maine Geological Survey and the Bureau of Parks and Lands share jurisdiction over prospecting and mineral development here. These are the lands a permit applies to.
- State Parks — collecting or removing anything natural is strictly prohibited. No permit overrides this.
- Private land— the majority of Maine. The state claims dataset deliberately does not represent private land at all, so a “no claims” reading applies to state ground only. Private access is a landowner question, not a state one.
- What a claim area does and does not mean— the state is explicit: an outlined claim area “doesn't mean necessarily that the claimant is allowed access to explore everything within the outlined area, only that it is allowed to explore State-owned land within the outlined area.” A claim is a right against the state over state ground inside the boundary — not a private enclosure.
Practical consequence: the same map polygon can be state ground in one part and private in another. Before staking anything, the parcel has to be resolved to the landowner — which is exactly why we published this page instead of just a list of coordinates.
WHERE WE SCOUT
Three kinds of ground
The western pegmatite belt
Oxford + Franklin counties
158 documented specimen-bearing sites
Pegmatite country. Documented commodities include beryl, gemstone, feldspar, mica, quartz, garnet, apatite and lithium-bearing minerals, plus columbite-tantalite. Eight sites are explicitly classified as pegmatite deposits in the state data.
Primary scouting areaHistoric mine clusters
Rumford, Newry, Andover, Stoneham, Lovell
Working-era sites with recorded workings
Concentrations of past producers and prospects where workings are already documented — shaft, adit and open-cut sites recorded in the state database. Workings mean access, and access means verifiable material.
Field-verified targetsOpen ground
State-owned land, statewide
Zero active claims
Because no claim anywhere is currently active, ground that was staked in the 1950s–80s is unencumbered today. Historic outlines show where the geology was promising enough to stake — that is a map of where to look, not a map of who owns it.
Open to permitWe do not publish individual specimen-site coordinates, claim-holder names or historic mine names on this page. The underlying data is public — the state publishes all of it — but a map of exactly where a one-person operation is digging is not something we hand out. Scouting detail is shared with mission participants and RIG holders.
COST MODEL
What a scouting season actually costs
| Line item | Cost | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Exploration permit (per person, per year) | $20 | Statutory, 12 MRS §549-B(1) |
| Claim staking materials (per claim) | ~$40–$120 | 4 corner posts + paint + line clearing |
| Annual claim upkeep | assessment work | Historic files show renewal conditioned on assessment work |
| Registration | $0 under $25k spend | 12 MRS §550 threshold |
| Field day (fuel, food, consumables) | ~$60–$150/day | Camping and self-supplied lodging keeps the low end |
| Survey-grade verification, when a find warrants it | quoted later | Not spent until there is something worth surveying |
The claim itself is the cheap part.A permit is $20 a year and staking is under a hundred dollars. The real cost is time in the field — and the real risk is spending field days on ground that turns out to be private, or that the geology never supported in the first place. That is why we start from the state's occurrence database instead of from a tip.
SEQUENCE
How a zone goes from map to claim
Pull documented occurrences for the quadrangle — commodity, status, workings. This narrows thousands of acres to a handful of sites.
Determine which part of the area is state public reserved land, which is park (off limits), and which is private. A claim can only ever cover the state portion.
Walk the ground. Verify access, confirm the geology is what the record said, and see whether workings are intact or overgrown.
$20 to the Director of the Survey. Applies to state lands only, runs to the next June 30th, renewable.
Define boundaries, erect four marked corner posts with name, permit number and date, paint and clear the lines. Minimum 20 acres.
File the claim, then work it. Any move to actual extraction becomes a mining lease with state royalties, and triggers full environmental review.
Sources on this page
- Maine Revised Statutes Title 12, ch. 201-A, subch. 3–4 — §549, §549-A, §549-B, §549-C, §550
- Maine Geological Survey — Mineral Exploration and Mining on State Lands
- Maine Geological Survey — Historical Mining Claims and Active Exploration Claims (live claims service)
- Maine Geological Survey / USGS — Maine Mineral Resources database (1,085 documented occurrences)
- Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands — public reserved lands jurisdiction
Nothing here is legal advice. Anyone staking ground should confirm current status with the Maine Geological Survey and the Bureau of Parks and Lands before filing.