[ashaikh]

A fundamental difference is that for Americans, natural resources are owned by the individual property owner rather than the state. If you find oil on your land in the US, it is yours and you decide what to do with it. In most other countries if there is oil on your land, the government has the exclusive right to oil (or other sub-surface minerals).

[Spooky23]

Lol. No.

Usually where there are significant amounts of minerals, there are separate mineral rights. Mineral rights trump surface ownership, and usually the rights were sold off decades or centuries ago. If you find something under your property, it probably doesn't belong to you.

Also, state laws vary in weird ways. Should you find gold in New York, it's the property of the state.

[hcurtiss]

Outside developed oil or coal plays, severed mineral estates in the US are the exception, not the rule. Also, to the point above, those severed mineral interests are almost always privately held.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Unless they happen to be on "sovereign" indian reservation land.