30 U.S.C. § 23
Section 23 · Length of claims on veins or lodes
Applied in 73 court decisions — leading case Coleman v. United States (1966)
Most recently applied in Earthworks v. DOI (June 2024)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Mining claims upon veins or lodes of quartz or other rock in place bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin, copper, or other valuable deposits, located prior to May 10, 1872, shall be governed as to length along the vein or lode by the customs, regulations, and laws in force at the date of their location. A mining claim located after the 10th day of May 1872, whether located by one or more persons, may equal, but shall not exceed, one thousand five hundred feet in length along the vein or lode; but no location of a mining claim shall be made until the discovery of the vein or lode within the limits of the claim located. No claim shall extend more than three hundred feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, nor shall any claim be limited by any mining regulation to less than twenty-five feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, except where adverse rights existing on the 10th day of May 1872 render such limitation necessary. The end lines of each claim shall be parallel to each other.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Codification
R.S. §2320 derived from act May 10, 1872, ch. 152, §2, 17 Stat. 91.
Promotion of Mining
See Promotion of Mining note set out under section 22 of this title.
Cross References
Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin mineral lands, see section 48 of this title.