Metal Detecting In Utah?

You Should Know The Law

Metal detecting in Utah follows the ARPA (Archeological Resources Preservation Act).

Please click on the link below for the ARPA explanation and some of the problems people face who break this law.

Be sure and read through the entire page.

Even though ARPA does not specifically mention "metal detecting", you need to understand what ARPA says about digging artifacts.

Pay particular attention to the section of stories that have been related to me about what happens when individuals break these laws.

ARPA and YOU
Click the link below for more detailed information on the Antiquities laws of Utah.

Utah detailed laws page.
To make treasure hunting in Utah even more difficult you need to be aware of another law, The National Historic Preservation Act - NHPA.

Click the link below for information about that law.

National Historic Preservation Act
To keep this law stuff as simple as possible;

If you are detecting in Utah, especially on land that is not privately owned,

do not dig anything that you believe is an artifact, or anything that is older than ugh 100 years.

If you want to detect on private property, then be sure you get written permission from the landowner.

For detecting in Utah, town, village and city parks, you'll need to check with those local officials.

I cannot be responsible for any outdated laws from the time of this posting.

My home page is all about metal detecting in eastern ghost towns.

Have you

been metal detecting in Utah ghost towns?