Where should one prospect in the United States?

There are certain areas, for the most part located in the western states, where a person is able to do prospecting for minerals and if they discover a valuable deposit, they have the right to stake a claim in such an area. Prospecting can still be done in a range of diverse places in the United States. If a discovery is made of a valuable mineral such as gold, staking a claim is a good option. The areas where this can be done include Oregon, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, California, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, South Dakota, Washington, Utah and Wyoming. These areas are for the most part unreserved Federal public lands and are administered by the Bureau of Land Management of the United States Department of the Interior. The public land records in the appropriate Bureau of Land Management State office will give information on the lands that are not allowed or closed off to entry under the mining laws. The Bureau of Land Management State office has the latest status on lands and is made available to the general public to look into. These places also publish a series of ownership and surface maps that illustrate the general ownership outline of the lands that are public. Gold mining and prospecting sites in California range from the Mexican border to the Oregon state line and eastward to the Arizona and Nevada state lines. Both Northern and Southern California make available a great number of locations where gold panning can be done. A person is able to locate mining claims on certain lands that are patented where the government has reserved the mineral rights, however you can only mine and patent only the reserved minerals in those types of lands. It is very important to be careful to not cause any harm to any of the resources that belong and are owned by others. Even though most of the public and National Forest lands are available to prospecting according to the mining law, most of the total acreage most likely does not have a great amount of valuable minerals. The idea for prospecting is to be able to find the areas that have valuable minerals are. After having found this type of discovery, is one able to validly stake a mining claim.