When the rule is not in the code

You were probably sent here by a page saying that what governs some piece of ground is not in the regulations. Most often that means an agency prohibits metal detecting and its own code does not carry the prohibition. Sometimes it means the reverse: the agency sets out detailed requirements, or grants permission on terms, and none of that is in the code either.

Every other page in this directory works the same way: find the code, read the section, quote it, link it. Nine states and one national forest break that method. In every one of them, the thing that will actually govern your afternoon is not in any code you can search. (The summary table has eleven rows because Virginia breaks it twice, once for its parks and once for its forests.)

The one thing to take away

A code search tells you what is written down. It does not tell you what will happen.

Normally, "we looked and found no rule" means a reader is probably fine. On these pages it means something else entirely, and it runs in both directions.

When the gap is prohibitive – the common case – the rule is unwritten and still enforced. Where a page tells you the code is silent but the agency says no, treat it as prohibited and ask the agency, rather than treating the gap as permission.

When the gap is permissive, the trap is the opposite one. The agency publishes requirements – gear sizes, hole depths, notification, what happens to what you find – and because they arrive in the authoritative voice of a government document, they read like law. They are not. They usually bind only the holder of a permit, on that agency's land, and a code search that finds no such provision has found the truth and not a loophole. The practical effect is that these requirements are more negotiable than they look, and narrower in reach than they look.

Two reasons treating a prohibitive gap as binding is the right call rather than timid.

First, the agency does not need a detector rule to stop you. Park services hold general powers: to close areas, to set conditions of entry, to order a visitor to leave, to revoke a permit. A ranger who tells you to pack up is usually exercising one of those, not citing a detector section. Whether the code mentions detectors is close to irrelevant to how the encounter goes.

Second, the cost is asymmetric. If you assume prohibited and you were actually entitled to search, you lose an afternoon. If you assume permitted and the agency disagrees, you lose the afternoon anyway, plus whatever else follows. There is no version of this where reading the code carefully gets you the afternoon back.

What the code search is good for is something else: knowing which of those two situations you are in, and being able to ask the agency a precise question.

And note that the same asymmetry does not hold on the permissive side. If an agency's published conditions turn out to be policy rather than code, following them anyway costs you very little – you dig a smaller hole and you tell the office you are coming. What it costs to get this backwards is different: you may conclude a whole class of detecting is prohibited by law when in fact nobody has written a prohibition, and stop asking. Knowing which document a requirement lives in tells you who can change it, which is the difference between a dead end and a conversation.

Alaska: the strongest version, where the code speaks and does not reach this

Alaska leads this page because it is the only one of these states where the gap is demonstrable rather than inferred. In the others we can say the code is silent. In Alaska we can say the code speaks and what it says does not reach a metal detectorist's find.

Alaska State Parks' own FAQ states flatly:

"No, you may not use a metal detector in a state park."

Read from the Alaska Administrative Code published by the Alaska State Legislature at akleg.gov, Title 11 chapter 12: its complete section list and the text of 11 AAC 12.170 and 12.175. Checked 4 October 2026.

All thirty-odd sections of 11 AAC 12 were read, from 12.010 "Limitation on use of park lands and waters" through 12.990 "Definitions". There is no section about metal detectors. The two that bear on detecting are these.

11 AAC 12.170, "Disturbance of natural objects":

"(a) No person may disturb, damage, deface, or remove natural objects including trees, plants, moss, rocks, gravel, or minerals, unless authorized by this section or by the director under 11 AAC 18.010."

11 AAC 12.175, "Cultural, archaeological, and historical material", in full:

"No person may disturb or remove cultural, archaeological, or historical material from a state park, unless authorized by the director under 11 AAC 18.010."

Now look at what those two do not cover. 12.170 lists natural objects: trees, plants, moss, rocks, gravel, minerals. A dropped coin is none of those. 12.175 reaches cultural, archaeological or historical material, not modern losses. So between them, the two provisions that exist do not obviously reach an ordinary modern find, which is precisely the gap the FAQ fills by assertion.

That is a stronger and more useful finding than "we could not find a rule". It tells you what the division's position rests on, which is its authority over the land rather than a provision of the code.

And a warning that belongs here. The text that circulates online as "the Alaska metal detecting rule" – possessing or using "a mineral or metal detector, magnetometer, side scan sonar, other metal detecting device, or subbottom profiler", with exceptions for a device broken down and stored – is not Alaska law at all. It is 36 CFR 2.1(a)(7), the National Park Service regulation, quoted word for word. See what ARPA actually covers for what that federal rule does and where it applies.

Arizona: the same shape, and the search that proves it

Added 6 October 2026, and it should have been here from the first draft. Arizona was missed because that draft worked from an earlier survey note listing four states, when Arizona's own entry had already established the point. The lesson is small and worth naming: a roster assembled from a summary inherits the summary's omissions.

Arizona State Parks' FAQ says:

"No. In order to conserve and protect the resources of the parks, we do not allow metal detecting."

Read from the consolidated Arizona Administrative Code published by the Secretary of State at apps.azsos.gov: Title 12 Chapter 8, the Arizona State Parks Board rules, Supp. 25-1 dated 31 March 2025, parsed locally – 81,536 characters covering R12-8-101 through R12-8-126. First read 19 September 2026, re-read in full 4 October 2026 with the same result.

The chapter was searched for "metal detect", "detector", "treasure", "artifact", "relic" and "excavat". All six returned zero occurrences.

The closest provision is not close:

R12-8-103. Vandalism. "Within a state park, a person shall not deface, injure, destroy, remove, or use, without authority, any: 1. Public facility or property; 2. Wildlife, plant, or animal; or 3. Archaeological, geological, or historical object."

That reaches removing an archaeological or historical object. It says nothing about detecting, and it does not reach municipal land.

So what is the prohibition, legally? A condition of entry. R12-8-102 governs "Permission to Enter or Remain in a State Park", and the policy is enforceable through that rather than through any detector section. The practical consequence of ignoring it is being asked to stop or to leave, not a fine for detecting.

Arizona is reported wrongly more often than any other state on this page. Every aggregator consulted during this project gave it as flatly prohibited by rule, and a post in our own network put the penalty at "$150,000 and 1.5 years imprisonment as a class 5 felony". The real penalty provision in Arizona's antiquities article, A.R.S. 41-846, makes a violation a class 2 misdemeanor with forfeiture to the Arizona State Museum, and it attaches to excavating a site or collecting a specimen rather than to detecting. A plausible-looking number is harder to doubt than a vague one, which is how that figure survived as long as it did.

Arizona also has what may be the single most useful sentence in this subject. A.R.S. 41-841(B) defines the protected "archaeological specimen" as an item at least one hundred years old, and then says:

"Archaeological specimen does not include arrowheads, coins or bottles."

Three states where the code is simply silent

In these the finding is narrower than Alaska's: we read the chapter that would carry a detector provision, and it does not.

New Jersey wildlife management areas. The State Park Service Code's own definition at N.J.A.C. 7:2-1.7 puts WMAs outside that chapter, so any detector rule would have to be in the Division of Fish and Wildlife's regulations. N.J.A.C. 7:25 was read in full, 1,168,684 characters, and contains no occurrence of the word "detect". DEP's WMA page nonetheless states that metal detecting is prohibited on wildlife management areas.

Virginia state forests. 4VAC10-30 has no detector provision. What it has is 4VAC10-30-50(A), prohibiting removal of "any tree, flower, artifact, fern, shrub, rock, or other plant or mineral in any forest" without the State Forests Superintendent's approval. The Department of Forestry's visitor page states that no metal detectors are permitted in state forests. That is policy, not regulation, and the Virginia page says so rather than attributing it to the Code.

Florida state parks. Rule 62D-2.013 governs state parks and carries no detecting provision. The Division of Recreation and Parks' published policy carries both halves of the real rule: a statewide prohibition and a beach allowance between the toe of the dune and the high-water line. Note what that means: on a Florida state park beach, the thing that permits you to detect is also outside the Code. The policy is not only the restriction, it is also your permission.

Virginia state parks: where the policy is the whole regime

This is the case most likely to matter to a reader planning a trip, and it is worth separating from the three above because the policy here is detailed rather than a bare prohibition.

4VAC5-30 carries no detector provision. DCR's rules page states that metal detectors "may be used only on designated man-made beaches and only with a DCR special use permit", obtained from the park manager, with designated beaches at six parks: Bear Creek Lake, Douthat, Fairy Stone, Holliday Lake, Hungry Mother and Twin Lakes. Everywhere else in the Virginia state park system, detecting is not permitted.

So the list of six parks, the man-made-beach limit and the special use permit are all agency policy. None of it is in the Virginia Administrative Code. That list is the single most actionable thing on the Virginia page and it is the part with no citation behind it.

This was read from dcr.virginia.gov on 19 September 2026 and has not been re-read since. The date matters more here than it does for a quoted regulation, for the reason in the next section.

Virginia wildlife management areas are left open rather than answered. The Department of Wildlife Resources publishes WMA rules stating that metal detecting and artifact hunting are prohibited, and every code search returned repealed provisions. We have not established the current regulation.

Two states with no code behind the rule at all

Different shape. Here there is no gap between the code and the policy, because there is no code.

South Carolina. SCPRT's "Metal Detection Policy" document is the instrument, not a description of one. There is no regulation to check it against; South Carolina's detector rule is agency policy and is not codified. The policy names seventeen properties where detection is prohibited, and that list is reproduced in full on the South Carolina page because a reader cannot follow a link to it.

Arkansas. Park Directive 3225 was supplied in writing by the Division of Arkansas State Parks, by email, on 23 September 2026. The division confirmed that no park operation manuals or directive series relating to metal detecting are published online. This text exists nowhere public – no consolidated code, no agency page, no register – so the Arkansas page reproduces the directive in full rather than linking to it.

Both of those are verified as far as verification can go. The test we apply is whether the thing we hold is the instrument itself or somebody's account of it, and in both cases it is the instrument. That is as good as these two get, and saying so is more useful than listing them as incomplete.

And one state that does it properly: Missouri

Missouri belongs on this page for the opposite reason. Its code does not have a gap. Its code points at the policy on purpose, and names metal detecting while doing it.

10 CSR 90-2.030(27):

"(A) State parks and historic sites provide opportunities for our visitors to engage in varied recreational activities. However, the division maintains the right to prohibit or otherwise restrict recreational activities that are not in keeping with the mission and objectives of the Department of Natural Resources, that may damage property, that require special safety measures, or that conflict with other uses of an area. Such prohibitions or restrictions shall be determined by the director, who may establish policy or procedures to regulate conduct. (B) Specific recreational activities that are restricted by policy include using metal detectors, caving, rock climbing and rappelling, diving, and conducting special events and activities."

That is a regulation telling you, in terms, that the detector rule lives in policy and who sets it. So the designated areas, the hours and the tool limits on the Missouri page are Division policy under (27)(B), not regulation text, and the page says so.

This is the transparent version of the same arrangement, and it is worth seeing once: delegation to policy is not itself a defect. What makes the other places on this page hard is not that policy governs. It is that nothing in the code tells you so – which is exactly what Missouri, and South Dakota below, do differently.

South Dakota: the same gap, running the other way

Everything above this point describes agencies prohibiting something their code does not prohibit. South Dakota is the mirror image, and it belongs here because the gap is identical in structure and opposite in effect.

Its code is almost silent. The whole of it is two sentences.

S.D. Admin. R. 41:03:01:29, "Restrictions on use of metal detectors – Written authorization required":

"No person may use a metal detector on lands owned, leased, managed, or controlled by the department without written authorization from a department representative. Written authorization may include conditions for permitted use specific to the applicable area."

Note that second sentence, because everything else comes out of it. Game, Fish and Parks publishes a metal detector permit form, and the form carries the real regime: that permits are issued for three reasons only – recreational detecting on designated swimming or boating beaches, archaeologists holding a State Archaeologist permit, and a person looking for a described lost item; that probes may not exceed six inches long, one inch wide and a quarter inch thick; that a sand scoop or sieve may not exceed ten inches across; that holes may be no more than six inches deep and must be backfilled; that a litter apron or bag is carried; that staff must be told a day in advance. And this, which matters more than any of it:

"All found items will be brought to the office for inspection by department staff. The department retains the right to keep anything of historical, archeological or culturally significant value."

None of that is in the administrative code. It is a condition of an authorisation, which the code expressly permits the department to attach.

Structurally this is Missouri's arrangement: the code delegates, and says so. The difference is what the delegation produces. Missouri's policy restricts. South Dakota's permits, on terms – and that changes what a reader should do with it.

What to do differently. Three things follow, and none of them follow from the prohibitive version of this page.

• These conditions bind a permittee on department land. On private ground with the owner's permission, the probe sizes and the hole depth are not your problem. A guide that presents them as "South Dakota's rules" has told you about the wrong document.
• The three permit reasons are a current practice, not a prohibition. 41:03:01:29 places no limit at all on what a department representative may authorise. So "the form does not issue permits for general treasure hunting" is a fact about the form, and the person who signs it is the person to ask. That is a conversation; a prohibition in the code would not be.
• Read the form before you apply, not after. The inspection-and-retention condition is the one that might change your mind, and it is the one no secondary source repeats. There is a second rule, and the detector permit is not it: 41:03:01:05 prohibits disturbing any earth on land the department owns or leases without written permission from the secretary or a designated agent. South Dakota separates the sweep from the dig and gives them different officers. See metal detecting rules in South Dakota.

Black Hills National Forest: it happens on federal ground too

Everything else on this page is a state agency. The same gap opens under federal management, and the Black Hills is the clearest instance found so far.

The forest publishes this:

"Metal detectors are allowed, as long as you don't dig holes." "Metal detecting on forest land is prohibited in areas with archaeological, historic or prehistoric sites or artifacts."

That is a usable answer, and it is more generous than the regulation behind it looks. 36 CFR 261.9 does not mention metal detectors and contains no no-holes rule. What it prohibits is this:

"(a) Damaging any natural feature or other property of the United States.
(b) Removing any natural feature or other property of the United States. …
(g) Digging in, excavating, disturbing, injuring, destroying, or in any way damaging any prehistoric, historic, or archaeological resource, structure, site, artifact, or property. (h) Removing any prehistoric, historic, or archaeological resource, structure, site, artifact, property."

So (g) reaches digging only in a resource or a site, which is narrower than the forest's flat line. And (a) prohibits damaging "any natural feature", which is broader than it, and undefined – a cautious reader could wonder whether a hole in the ground is one.

The forest's guidance sits between those two and is more useful than either: it draws one line anybody can follow without a lawyer. Follow it. It is the forest that manages the ground, and its published position is the best available statement of how its own staff will read a vague provision.

What the gap tells you is where the line came from, and therefore how far it travels. "No holes" is this forest's administrable reading of 261.9, not a provision of the CFR, so it is not automatically the position of a different national forest. On other National Forest System land, the regulation is the same and the published guidance may not be – which makes checking the specific forest's page a real step rather than a formality.

How to read these pages differently

They carry a date instead of a citation, and the date is doing real work.

A quoted regulation changes through rulemaking. There is a proposal, a comment period, a register entry, an effective date. You can check whether what we quoted is still current, and so can we.

A policy changes when somebody decides to change it. There is no register that would announce it. If SCPRT revises its property list, or Virginia DCR adds a seventh beach, or Alaska's division softens its FAQ, this directory is wrong until a human goes and looks. That is not a flaw we can engineer away; it is a property of the thing being described.

So on these pages:

• Check the date. It is on the page. The older it is, the more weight the next step carries.
• Ask the agency, and ask about your specific park. These are the places where a phone call to the park office beats any amount of research, because the park office is where the rule actually lives.
• Do not treat the absence of a code provision as permission. It is the signal that there is nothing to read, not the signal that there is nothing to obey.
• And do not treat a published requirement as a provision. Where the gap runs the permissive way, ask two questions the code can answer: whose land does this reach, and who may change it? An agency's conditions normally bind that agency's permittees on that agency's land, and the official who issues the authorisation is usually free to issue a different one.

Where these quotations come from

The Alaska code sections on this page were read for this project from the Alaska Administrative Code published by the Alaska State Legislature at akleg.gov on 4 October 2026, as stated above. Every other quotation is reproduced from the state entry it belongs to, and each of those entries records what it was read from and on what date. Follow the state link.

The agency positions are a different kind of claim and are dated separately, because that is the whole point of this page. Alaska's FAQ was read on 4 October 2026. Virginia's DCR policy was read on 19 September 2026 and has not been re-read. Virginia's Department of Forestry page, New Jersey's DEP wildlife management area page and Florida's park service policy were read during the September and October 2026 passes, and each state page carries its own date. South Carolina's policy document was recovered on 20 September 2026; Arkansas's directive was supplied by the division on 23 September 2026.

South Dakota's permit form was read at source on 8 October 2026, from gfp.sd.gov, together with rule 41 of the Administrative Rules of South Dakota from the Legislative Research Council. Black Hills National Forest's detecting page was read on 8 October 2026 from fs.usda.gov, and 36 CFR 261.9 from the eCFR, title 36 current as of 2 October 2026.

None of those dates is a guarantee of currency. A policy can change the day after it is read, and nothing announces it.

A shared explainer. It is linked from every state page that invokes it and is never restated inline, so one correction here fixes every page that depends on it.

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