A PLSS section approximately 1430 feet wide

One of my favorites:

Not as narrow as your example, but still it's a mess. This is a dependent resurvey of a township. This Section 8 which shows 13 lots is all patented and is owned by one landowner. The Lots only pertain to the split mineral estate retained by the Feds. If you're to purchase the land, the Lots would not apply. Nor would they apply if for private mineral estate holdings within a lot. 

Is Lot 1 the whole north tier, or if not what are the other pieces?

Posted by: @bill93

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Is Lot 1 the whole north tier, or if not what are the other pieces?

Lot 1 is the NE1/4NE1/4, all the lands in the Section are described as aliquot parts under the patents.

There are only lots for Fed estate.

I don't know how extensive the Fed interest is, but for lands patented there are no lots in this Section. If you were to purchase the blank areas on this plat they should be described as the N1/2NW1/4, NW1/4NE1/4.

If you purchase the Lands shown as Lots 6, 7, 12 & 13, it should be described as the SE1/4. Occasionally title people get confused and described them as Lots, that is incorrect as no private person can own public estates. 

The four lots in my section can only be identified as lots as there are no standard aliquot names possible.

In the sections near my wife's family lands in Iowa south of a "correction line" (equivalent to what was later named a standard parallel), the descriptions have a SW 1/4, a SE 1/4, and 12 Government Lots. Eight of those are nominally 40 acres, and GL1-4 run about 52 acres.

Many of those GL's were broken into smaller lots by transactions in the 1800's, often small ones for firewood lots owned by people in town, although many of those are now  under common ownership.

So it can be something like The west 8 acres of Lot 1 in Government Lot 5 of section 6, TxxN RxxW of the 5th PM. Of course, all the acreage callouts were assumed to be within perfect aliquot parts so somebody owned "exactly" the east 2 acres.

I have never encountered mineral rights separated from the surface rights around here, although I'm sure it was important in the coal mining areas of the state (no longer active because of high sulfur content).

Different conventions at different times and places.

@bill93 

Split estate issues began in the early 1900's. At first coal was reserved, later, I think it was 1916 all minerals got reserved. So if patents in your area predate the early 1900's then the patentees retained full mineral rights. No doubt there are exceptions.

In my neighborhood, we see the separation of mineral interests for oil and gas.  Typically, this occurred after wells were installed.  The seller of the tract would want to keep the income from the wells.  These are little stripper oil wells so the income is not that much.  I have a farm that came with a gas well and I receive a whopping $50 per month or less.  What is funny is that the mineral interest has a property tax assigned to it.  I have seen mineral interests come up for sale at delinquent tax sales.

The section in my original post is bounded on the east by the Kansas and Missouri Border. That line was surveyed about 1820 relative to the 5th Principal Meridian.  The surveying of sections in Kansas uses the 6th Principal Meridian.  The width mentioned above is simply what is left between the section to the west and the State Line.  In, this case, being less than a standard half mile, there is no SW or NW quarter.  It is simply four lots.

The bend in the east line mentioned above comes about due to the reality of land surveying.  What is defined as a straight line is almost never straight.  The point mentioned above being about 1550 feet south of the northeast corner of the Kansas section is the northwest corner of the abutting Missouri section.  The Kansas section is in a township being South and East of the Initial Point.  The Missouri section is in a township being North and West of its initial point, which is in Arkansas.

In Missouri, the establishment of the standard parallels was poorly carried out.  There are sections below each standard parallel with huge north-south dimensions.  Many additional lots are sometimes required to finally intersect the standard parallel.  I hope a Missouri surveyor will add some comments about this.

The western boundary of Missouri has three main parts. There is a line angling to the west of north from the NW corner of Arkansas to the SE corner of Kansas.  Then the line going north from that point to the intersection point of the Kansas River and the Missouri River.  Then northerly following the center line of the Missouri River abutting the NE part of Kansas and the SE part of Nebraska until hitting the southern border of Iowa.

@holy-cow 

Split estate comes in a couple of flavors. The ones above are reserved rights by the Feds. How much of the mineral rights they retained would need to be researched. Fortunately, all you need to do is look at the MT plat or even better the OG plat. Those should both show what minerals are still in Fed hands. 

For private minerals they get reserved by the grantor, if the grantor doesn't say the minerals are reserved in the deed then whatever the grantor has is passed onto the grantee. That's the general rule, which was partly upended by the state SC in 1988.

If you have minerals and the landowner dies, then his estate that's passed on is subject to estate taxes. If there is a stripper well pumping out $100 a month, the tax man will claim the estimated amount of oil in the pool. Say they figure out there is $50m of recoverable oil, then the estate tax will be $50m-the lifetime exclusion that's left x .40. So $50m-15mX.4=$14m. So you have a little well cranking out $100 a month, the tax man wants $14 million now. 

I've seen that exact thing happen in my family, it can be devastating. 

My mother had a possibly lucrative mineral estate from her grandfather's homestead. She was slipping into dementia, and we felt it was time to divide up her minerals, we had her lawyer draw up the documents and she granted the children 1/6 of 3/4, and kept 1/4. We felt even if some lil well ever got drilled there it would protect the estate from the tax man. She looked at my older sister and said; "You just want to take it all from me, don't you". Talk about a quiet room. At least she didn't blame me. 

Her cousin was very upset by a well that got drilled in the middle of his wheat field. It's on a 40 acre of state land. They drilled a vertical well into a typical pool of oil. State law declares that everyone in the section gets mineral rights to the well,,,,,,,,,,unless there is a spacing order. The state petitioned to space that well into only the 40 and the Oil and Gas commission agreed. My mom's cousin went ballistic, however, since it's a very non-productive well, it would have absolutely killed the family when my mom's generation started passing. It would have activated the mineral rights for taxation. How much actual recoverable oil is down there hasn't been determined but it is in the outskirts of the Bakken so it's possibly a huge number. 

If there is no production then the rights are valued by the amount they can be leased. 

@mightymoe 

The only blessing with my little gas well is that it physically sets on a neighbor's land and so does the access driveway.  My pitiful little less than $600 per year in payments causes me to report that on a separate 1040 form to be assessed income taxes and then I get an additional property tax form from the County so I can also pay property taxes.

Posted by: @holy-cow

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@mightymoe 

The only blessing with my little gas well is that it physically sets on a neighbor's land and so does the access driveway.  My pitiful little less than $600 per year in payments causes me to report that on a separate 1040 form to be assessed income taxes and then I get an additional property tax form from the County so I can also pay property taxes.

I have .01% of mineral rights of a family well. If the amount doesn't reach $100 in a month I don't get a check, once the total from the last payment gets to $100 then they issue me a check. I didn't get one last month. And Like you I have to file on that money. However, the state and local taxes are paid out of the check so I don't need to file with the state.