Wow! 10 acres by 15' deep. If I did my math correctly, that's ~240,000 cubic yards of black gold. Around here, you could sell it by the dump truck load for at least $25 a yard, to landscapers, organic farmers, homeowners, golf courses, etc..

You only need to find one volume customer who will contract for a good quantity. Take that contract to a bank, and borrow enough to set up the business. Buy a front loader, a small dozer and a good dump truck, and start mining it yourself. Don't mess with bagging it, just sell it by the cubic yard, delivered and dumped. It would be easy to find customers and hire truckers to deliver it.

To me, at least, it does not seem that it would be spamming to link to another G.W. forum in the same system in search of some kind of an answer, like I provided the link below.

Don has already outlined what could be a viable business plan, so just some additional thoughts off the top of my head are:

Since you have stated that some ancient animal bones have been found by minor digging, would it be a good idea to try to attract the attention of some palentologist. I would consult an attorney first regarding concerns of them turning it into a historical site and tying it up which would be contrary to your goals. The plus side, if any, would be that it would probably attract a lot of free publicity and attention, perhaps buyers or lessors, miners etc.

If someone did contract to mine the resources and were willing to set up a bagging operation with migrant workers or mechanically, and assuming the quality meets the test, a contract with Wallmart could absorb many, many bags of "Black Gold" per year. There are some hazzards in dealing with Wallyworld however and once again caution should be exercised with that.

Others may have better and more innovative ideas, it is an interesting situation. Please keep us informed on how things go. Good Luck
Bill P.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread mentioned above