How RockHoundR is sourced, classified, and reviewed.

RockHoundR is a field-planning directory of U.S. rockhounding spots. The product is the planning surface around a location: likely materials, county context, geologic background, land-status category, and the agency or operator to confirm current rules with.

Pages are written to be useful before a trip. A coordinate alone does not establish legal access, current conditions, or productivity.

Coverage depth is uneven on purpose. State pages and well-sourced spot pages carry the most context. Lighter records remain in the directory as starting points for research and are upgraded as better sources and reader corrections come in. RockHoundR does not claim that every spot in the directory has been walked or hand-checked in the field.

State pages are built against named sources where they are available. Where multiple sources disagree, the higher-tier source is treated as authoritative and the lower-tier signal is dropped or flagged. Some pages lean more heavily on agency sources than others, and the citation depth on each page reflects what was on file at the time of the last review.

1. Tier 1

   2.1
   Land-management agencies

   • BLM field offices and recreational mineral collecting pages
   • U.S. Forest Service forest and ranger-district guidance
   • National Park Service rule pages
   • State park systems and state trust-land authorities
2. Tier 1

   2.2
   Geological surveys

   • State geological surveys and natural-resource departments
   • USGS publications, maps, and bulletins
   • Published mineral occurrence reports
3. Tier 2

   2.3
   Fee-dig and permitted operators

   • Operator-published rules, hours, and keep policies
   • Booking systems and seasonal closures
4. Tier 3

   2.4
   Submitted corrections

   • Field reports, closures, and access changes
   • Checked against agency or operator sources before guidance is updated

The sequence below describes how a page is brought to a publish-ready state. State pages are reviewed against named sources before publication. Spot pages inherit that state-level review and are individually upgraded when new sources, reader corrections, or operator updates arrive.

The workflow describes the process applied when a record is touched. It is not a claim that every existing entry in the directory has been hand-verified.

1. 1
   3.1 Normalize

   Spot names, state and county routes, mineral labels, coordinates, and access types are cleaned before publication.

2. 2
   3.2 Classify access

   Public, paid, permission-required, and unknown-access spots are separated so a listing does not read as open ground by default.

3. 3
   3.3 Cross-check

   State guidance is checked against agency, survey, park, trust-land, and operator sources where reliable sources are available.

4. 4
   3.4 Cite

   Source categories and agency links are surfaced on state pages, and on spot pages where the record is backed by a reliable source.

5. 5
   3.5 Date

   Where a current check against the underlying source is on file, a last-reviewed date is published on the page. Records without a fresh source check are not back-dated to imply a review that did not happen.

6. 6
   3.6 Correct

   Closures, changed access, wrong minerals, bad coordinates, and better source links are reviewed against the underlying source and applied.

Closures, changed access, wrong minerals, bad coordinates, and better source links are reviewed against the underlying agency or operator before public guidance is updated. Corrections are part of the workflow, not an afterthought, and most page improvements over time come from readers in the field.

RockHoundR is not a land-management agency, a geological survey, a legal authority, or a permit system. Collecting rules change by field office, land status, mining claim, park boundary, tribal land, season, and landowner permission. The final check before collecting is always the current managing agency, operator, or landowner.

Coverage and confidence vary by page. Treat thinner records as a starting point for research, not a finished field guide.