§ 6.11 - Important Rules for Recreational Rockhounding

• Jurisdiction: Washington

§6.11 IMPORTANT RULES FOR RECREATIONAL ROCKHOUNDING

The law pertaining to rockhounding (i.e., collecting rocks, gemstones, minerals, fossils, meteorites, and artifacts), a frequent pastime of children and their families, is extremely complicated. Generally speaking, the applicable law depends upon four critical facts: (1) ownership of the property where the collecting occurs; (2) the type of material—e.g., rocks (such as obsidian), gemstones (such as garnets, agates, etc.), minerals (such as gold, silver, copper, etc.), petrified wood, fossils (plant, invertebrate, vertebrate, and trace), meteorites, etc.; (3) the manner of collecting—e.g., surface collection, hand tools, digging, mechanized, blasting; and (4) the status of the collector.

The property ownership question is pretty easy. In Washington, all real property belongs to someone (and, increasingly, more than one person). Generally speaking, there are two categories: private property and public property. Rockhounding on private property is easy. If you own the property or have permission to be there (e.g...