Official maps and the original stepped views live on the Nevada Division of Minerals Mineral Rights Explorer (ArcGIS Experience). Open that app for land status, county assessor links, Master Title Plats, the land catalog, and mining-claim density. This page is a written guide to the same data and the same area — Nevada, public-land survey, federal patents — not a copy of those maps.

What this is about, and where

The explorer is a Nevada Division of Minerals (NDOM) public tool. The area is Nevada: mostly federal public land, private inholdings, and split estate where the United States reserved minerals when it patented the surface. The data behind the app is the same class of public land records a researcher uses there — county assessor parcels, the Public Land Survey System (township, range, section), BLM Master Title Plats and historic indexes, General Land Office patents, and mining-claim activity by section. NDOM also publishes a beginners land-research how-to (PDF) and open GIS.

Mineral Vertex buys oil and gas minerals and matches owners with buyers. Most of the mail we see is Permian, Haynesville, Eagle Ford, Bakken — not Nevada locatable minerals. The reason this guide sits next to our oil and gas map is the grid: township-range-section is how federal land is described from Nevada to North Dakota. Turn on Townships & ranges and Sections on the map to see that grid. Do not treat either map as a title opinion.

Step 1. Mineral rights overview

Start at NDOM’s Step 1. Mineral Rights Overview. In that view they treat mineral rights as a bundle that can include oil, gas, geothermal, metals, and industrial minerals — not only the oil and gas estate a buyout letter is after. Surface and minerals can be owned by different people. The first federal conveyance (the patent) may have reserved some or all minerals to the United States. Later deeds at the county recorder can sever what the patent did not.

Chain of title for the private mineral estate, if one exists, is a walk of recorded instruments back to that patent — not a colored polygon. NDOM is not a landman shop and does not give legal advice. Neither do we. If the paper in your mailbox is a mineral deed offer or a lease, that is a different instrument from a Nevada mining-claim search, but the same warning applies: a map layer is context, not ownership.

Step 2. Township, range, and section

An initial search needs a PLSS call: township, range, and section (and aliquot parts when you have them). People usually arrive with a county and an assessor’s parcel number. NDOM’s Step 2 map is a county index into Nevada assessor sites so you can read the legal description off the parcel. Some counties expose a real-property search; others only an interactive map. Lincoln County, they note, has no separate real-property search page — use the county map’s parcel search. Whatever the county built, copy the T / R / Sec from the land description, then go to land status.

We do not host Nevada assessor layers. If the letter already prints a section-township-range (common on New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Colorado mail), skip the APN hunt and match that call on our map’s PLSS layers. Texas mail is usually survey, abstract, and block instead — turn on Texas surveys, not PLSS.

Step 3. Location and land status

NDOM’s next map zooms to that township-range-section so you can see whether the surface is shown as private or still in some federal or withdrawn status. Their search wants the PLSS packed in the format their layer uses; type enough of the township and range for the dropdown, then pick the section. A click on the section opens a popup into Nevada land records: Historic Index and Master Title Plat for that township. The plat is where you read patent or order numbers that later feed the land catalog. Use their maps for that click-through. Our map will outline the same section on the national CadNSDI / EIA grid; it will not open an MTP.

If the status is not the private inholding you expected, that is the point of the step — stop guessing and read why the color (or the transparency) is different before you spend money on a full mineral title.

Step 4. Patents and the land catalog

The next official view is patent and control-document research for that township-range-section: BLM patents, the Control Document Index, and surveys, or the same search in the General Land Office / land catalog. What you want under miscellaneous information is whether the United States reserved minerals when it issued the patent.

• If the patent reserved minerals, you are in split estate. The reservation language — all minerals, or oil and gas only, or something narrower — is in the patent image, the MTP, or the CDI, not in a GIS fill color.
• If no mineral reservation appears, private mineral title, if any, has to be proven with every later deed from the patent date forward. Those deeds are at the county recorder, not on the map.

That is the same idea as a heirship walk on producing oil and gas minerals: the map gets you to the right square; the recorder gets you to who owns it. NDOM’s definitions treat a land patent as the first transfer out of the United States, tying a patentee to a legal description and an issue date. We are not restating their sample township plat or their story-map screenshots — open Step 4 in the Experience when you need those layers.

Step 5. Whether further title work is worth it

NDOM’s last map is an evaluation layer: mining claims staked in a section (through early 2022 in their published snapshot), assessment / maintenance fees paid to BLM, and currently active claims. Their point is practical. If a section has never seen locatable-mineral activity, paying a landman or mineral attorney to prove a private mineral estate may not be worth the bill. If the section is stacked with claims and fee payments, the cost of clarifying title may be justified. That is a personal decision. When the facts are messy, they say to get a landman or a mineral attorney. So do we.

That density map is Nevada hardrock context. It is not a Haynesville unit, a Permian lateral, or a reason to sign a mineral deed that arrived on oil and gas minerals in another state. If your envelope is a cash buyout, send the packet — we buy, we match buyers, and we will try an offer or a counter. We do not promise to beat every letter. We do not run NDOM’s claim layer on our map.

How this sits on our map

On the oil and gas map, Land identifiers already draw:

• Townships & ranges (PLSS) and Sections (PLSS) — national EIA / CadNSDI grid, the same survey system NDOM’s MineralRightsPLSS layer uses for Nevada.
• Lots / quarter-quarters where that service covers them (currently New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado on our map).
• Texas surveys & abstracts where PLSS does not apply.

What we do not draw, on purpose: Nevada county assessor parcels, BLM Master Title Plats, GLO patent popups, land-status fills from NDOM’s LandStatusBeginning layer, or the EvaluationMap of mining claims. Those stay in the official Mineral Rights Explorer. Use our map to match a play, a pipeline, a well, a unit, or a PLSS call on an oil and gas letter. Use theirs to finish Nevada federal-land research.

Official sources

• Mineral Rights Explorer — Step 1. Mineral Rights Overview (NDOM, ArcGIS Experience)
• Mineral Rights Land Research How-To (PDF)
• NDOM open data
• BLM General Land Office records / land catalog
• Nevada Division of Minerals

Nothing on this page is legal advice, a title opinion, or a substitute for a recorded chain. NDOM’s maps and ours are approximate public GIS. If you want cash on oil and gas minerals, send the county and any letter in hand.