On: A Mysterious Patch Of Light Shows Up In The North ...

[arethuza]

"energy companies bought "mineral rights" to the land below those farms"

Presumably someone (the farmers?) sold those rights in the past?

[taejo → arethuza]

In most places mineral rights and land rights are separate. I may own land but if diamonds are found under it by somebody else, I have no particular right to extract them. It appears the US may be different though.

[arethuza → taejo]

But if I start of owning both the land and the mineral rights, surely I can sell off the mineral rights and continue to "own" and farm the land? It would seem a surpising legal requirement that the land and the mineral rights always remain part of the same item.

[NB I come from somewhere with quite remarkable land ownership issues, so perhaps I'm introducing complexities where they don't exist].

[sageikosa → arethuza]

Usually. It depends on the deed titles you possess, which may preclude such actions. Also, sometimes they may not be severable based on jurisdiction.

[superk → taejo]

Well, there are ways around it:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120427144332/simpson...

[Torgo → superk]

Isn't that a real thing though? I thought that slant drilling from Kuwait into a disputed region in Iraq was one of the claimed causes of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

[skylan_q → arethuza]

The gov't bodies largely determine the law, so they've determined that the farmer only bought the land above the mineral deposits. ;)