Paydirt: Rockhound & Gold Map

Paydirt is a rockhounding map and gold prospecting app for the United States. Open the map and see what is in the ground around you.

Paydirt carries 164,738 documented mineral and mine sites, curated from the USGS Mineral Resources Data System and stored on your phone, so the map still works where the signal does not. Filter to the material you want, check who manages the land, drive out, and log what you carry home.

Paydirt is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for the USGS, the BLM or any government agency. It reads their public data, listed with links at the end.

WHAT IS AROUND YOU
• 164,738 US sites, filterable by eleven commodity groups: gold, silver, copper, gemstones, agate and quartz, fluorescent minerals and more
• Search any site by name, save favorites, and hand off to your maps app for directions
• Detail sheets with commodity, deposit type and development status, and flags for underground workings

WHO MANAGES THE GROUND
• Press and hold anywhere on the map and Paydirt names the surface managing agency: BLM, Forest Service, National Park Service, state or private
• Shade the whole map by land manager, like a BLM land map built for collectors
• Plain-language collecting rules for each agency, with the agency named and a prompt to verify locally. Ownership is reported as a sourced observation, never as permission
• A mining claims map: a bundled snapshot of 579,528 open BLM claims answers with no signal at all and prints the date it was taken
• Lapsed claims shown separately, because a closed claim is a lead rather than a restriction

READ THE TERRAIN
• Terrain shading relit in real time. Sweep the sun around the dial and drainages, benches, tailings and old road beds step out of the ground
• Historic USGS topographic sheets draped over the modern map, back to 1884. Shafts, adits and settlements that appear on no current map

PATHFINDER GEOCHEMISTRY
• 58,326 anomalous stream sediment samples from the NURE survey, across twelve elements
• Arsenic, antimony, mercury and bismuth trail gold. Molybdenum trails porphyry copper. Filter for the halo, then walk upstream
• Every sample ranked inside its own quadrangle, so you read a real anomaly and not which laboratory worked there

ROCK IDENTIFIER
• Photograph a rock, mineral or gem and get an identification, then see where else that material occurs near you
• Results use the same groups as the map filters, so an identification turns straight into places to go. Identify needs a connection; with no signal the photo waits so you can try again

YOUR FINDS, PRIVATE
• A journal of what you found: photo, coordinate, material, date, notes
• It stays on your phone. No account, no sign in, no ads

OFFLINE BY DESIGN
• The site database, the claim snapshot and the geochemistry ship inside the app and work the first time you open it, in airplane mode
• Save an area for offline to carry the topographic basemap into the canyon with you

Coverage is the United States. Sources:
• USGS Mineral Resources Data System: https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/
• NURE stream sediment survey: https://mrdata.usgs.gov/nure/sediment/
• USGS historical topographic maps: https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past
• USGS topo and imagery basemaps: https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/national-map
• BLM Surface Management Agency: https://gbp-blm-egis.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/blm-natl-sma-surface-management-agency-area-polygons
• BLM mining claims: https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/mining-and-minerals/locatable-minerals/mining-claims
• Elevation for terrain shading: https://registry.opendata.aws/terrain-tiles/
• Street map: OpenFreeMap and OpenStreetMap contributors, https://openfreemap.org/

Paydirt is not legal advice. Confirm access, claim status and collecting rules with the managing agency before you dig.