State rules · United States
Other US states: the default rules
No statewide fossil statute was found for most remaining states: private land with permission is legal, state parks are closed, federal land follows federal rules.
Some rules in this article could not be confirmed against a primary source at the as-of date. Verify locally before relying on them.
For states without a dedicated article — Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the rest — no statewide statute regulating fossils on private land was found at the as-of date. The general rules therefore apply: fossils on private land belong to the landowner and may be collected and sold with permission; state parks, state forests, nature preserves and wildlife areas prohibit removal of natural materials under their park rules; and federal land follows 43 CFR 49 and 36 CFR 291.
Several of these states have antiquities or heritage statutes that mention paleontological resources on state-owned land (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota among them) and require a permit for excavation there; none was found that authorises hobby collecting of vertebrates on state land. Colorado's state antiquities act and New Mexico's Cultural Properties Act both reach fossils on state land.
Ivory is a separate layer: Nevada, Hawaii and New Jersey ban sale of mammoth ivory alongside elephant, as do New York, California and Illinois (see the CITES, ivory and export article).
Verify locally before relying on this: the state geological survey's FAQ page (New Mexico's is a model) and the state parks rule are the two documents to read. Stratum will add a state article when a rule is confirmed.
Sources
Cite this article
Stratum Study. "Other US states: the default rules" (Law & ethics). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16. https://stratum.black/study/law/us-other-states. Accessed 2026-09-20.
@misc{stratum-us-other-states,
title = {Other US states: the default rules},
author = {{Stratum Study}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/law/us-other-states}},
year = {2026},
note = {Law & ethics article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
} Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.