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Abandoned mines › New Mexico
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Taos County, New Mexico

Taos County, New Mexico has 144 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1953–1995, including 43 mine openings (shafts, adits and air shafts) and 23 prospect pits; 10 of the features carry a name on the map. OSMRE's abandoned mine land inventory lists 13 problems in the county, 1 of them not yet reclaimed. MSHA's register carries 21 mines in the county with status Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed.

Every mine and prospect feature the USGS digitized from historical topographic maps covering Taos County, every OSMRE abandoned mine land problem in the county, and every MSHA-registered mine here with status Abandoned. Named features are listed below; unnamed ones are counted by type. Locations are deliberately not shown: this page says what abandoned workings are in the county, not where to find them. They are dangerous and should not be entered.

Mapped mine features (USGS)
144
Mine openings
43
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
1
MSHA mines marked abandoned
21
10 features carry a name23 prospect pits27 quadrangle maps, published 1953–1995 13 OSMRE problems, 12 reclaimed 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mine openings
    shafts, adits, air shafts, portals and vertical openings: the ways into underground workings
    49 31.2%
  2. Prospect pits and trenches
    shallow exploration diggings that never became a mine
    23 14.6%
  3. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    18 11.5%
  4. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    55 35.0%
  5. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    6 3.8%
  6. Mills, tipples and facilities
    processing plants and hazardous structures
    1 0.6%
  7. Other reclamation problems
    highwalls, subsidence, polluted or clogged water, fires, slides and gases in OSMRE's inventory
    5 3.2%
Named features on the maps10 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Anchor Mine Adit
Bunker Hill Mine Mine Shaft
Champion Mine Mine Shaft
Harding Mine Open Pit Mine
Memphis Mine Shaft
Midnight Mine Mine Shaft
Questa Molybdenum Mine Adit
Questa Molybdenum Mine Open Pit Mine area
The Tungsten Mine Mine Shaft
United Mine Open Pit Mine area

A name is the label printed beside the symbol on the map. "First mapped" is the earliest topographic edition that shows the symbol, which bounds the feature's age from above; it is not the date it was worked. Unnamed features (most prospect pits, adits and shafts carry no label) are in the counts above but not this list.

OSMRE abandoned mine land problems13 on inventory
Problem area Problem Status
Black Copper P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Penasco Hard Rock P1 Portals Reclamation Completed
Penasco Hard Rock P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Penasco Hard Rock P2 Dangerous Highwalls In Reclamation
Penasco Hard Rock P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities Reclamation Completed
Rock Wall P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Rock Wall P3 Slurry Reclamation Completed
Tres Ritos, New Mexico P1 Vertical Openings Reclamation Completed
Tse Tah 3 P2 Dangerous Highwalls Reclamation Completed
Tse Tah 3 P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments Reclamation Completed
Tse Tah 3 P2 Portals Reclamation Completed
Tse Tah 3 P3 Bench Reclamation Completed
Tse Tah 3 P3 Haul Road Reclamation Completed

Problem types carry OSMRE's priority prefix: P1 and P2 are threats to health, safety and property, P3 is environmental. A problem area is a cluster of problems reclaimed as one project; several rows can share one location.

MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned21 on register
  1. #1 Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Choice Aggregate · MSHA ID 2902255
    Abandoned
  2. BLM Penasco Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Fernandez Gravel · MSHA ID 2902083
    Abandoned
  3. COSTILLO, LLC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Adobe Sand & Gravel Inc · MSHA ID 2902146
    Abandoned
  4. EL GRANDE
    Surface metal/non-metal · Dicaperl Minerals LLC · MSHA ID 2900250
    Abandoned
  5. Martinez Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Martinez Brothers Gravel Products Inc · MSHA ID 2902089
    Abandoned
  6. Martinez Pit & Plant
    Surface metal/non-metal · Robert Medina & Sons · MSHA ID 2900477
    Abandoned
  7. Max Ortega Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Robert E Rivera Construction Company · MSHA ID 2902113
    Abandoned
  8. Medina'S Sunshine Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Robert Medina & Sons Concrete & Sand Inc · MSHA ID 2901753
    Abandoned
  9. Moly Mill
    Facility metal/non-metal · Molycorp Inc · MSHA ID 2900898
    Abandoned
  10. Moly Mine & Mill
    Facility metal/non-metal · Molycorp Inc · MSHA ID 2900164
    Abandoned
  11. New Mexico Highway Department Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · New Mexico State Highway Department · MSHA ID 2901703
    Abandoned
  12. PORTABLE #2
    Surface metal/non-metal · Perovich Properties Inc · MSHA ID 2902195
    Abandoned
  13. Questa Mine & Mill
    Underground metal/non-metal · Chevron Mining Inc · MSHA ID 2901267
    Abandoned
  14. Rael's Gravel Machine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rael Excavation & Co. · MSHA ID 2902261
    Abandoned
  15. Rio Grande Crusher
    Surface metal/non-metal · Rio Norte Aggregates · MSHA ID 2901765
    Abandoned
  16. Robert Lopez Excavation
    Surface metal/non-metal · Robert Lopez Excavation · MSHA ID 2902405
    Abandoned
  17. Rudolph Gallegos Gravel Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · R & W Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2901764
    Abandoned
  18. Torres Pit Gonzales Sand & Gravel
    Surface metal/non-metal · Gonzales Sand & Gravel · MSHA ID 2902063
    Abandoned
  19. Tortuga Mesa Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · J & R Excavation & Concrete Specialty Inc · MSHA ID 2902297
    Abandoned
  20. U S Hill Mine
    Surface metal/non-metal · Oglebay Norton Specialty Minerals Incorporated · MSHA ID 2900608
    Abandoned
  21. Uniperl Or Uniperl Division
    Surface metal/non-metal · Silbrico Corp · MSHA ID 2900249
    Abandoned

Status and date are as reported to MSHA by the operator. Each mine's own page carries its accident, citation and inspection record.

By source vocabularythe publishers' own terms
Feature type Features
Adit 30
Gravel Pit 28
Prospect Pit 23
Gravel Pit 17
Mine Shaft 13
Open Pit Mine 10
Borrow Pit 6
Tailings - Pond 4
Strip Mine 4
Open Pit Mine 3
P1 Vertical Openings 3
P2 Dangerous Highwalls 2
P2 Portals 2
Borrow Pit 2
P2 Hazardous Equip & Facilities 1
Gravel/Borrow Pit - Undifferentiated 1
P3 Haul Road 1
Sand Pit 1
P3 Bench 1
P3 Slurry 1
P2 Dangerous Piles & Embankments 1
Mine Dump 1
P1 Portals 1
Disturbed Surface 1
Other counties in New MexicoAll counties →
How to read these numbers

A USGS feature is a symbol on a historical topographic map, there when the map was surveyed; it may since have been sealed, reclaimed, built over or reopened as a working mine, and the map does not say which. An OSMRE row is a problem the abandoned mine land program tracks, not a mine. An MSHA mine is a registered operation whose operator reported abandonment, a record that starts in the 1970s. The three overlap and are never added together. The county is assigned from each feature's coordinates against the Census 2023 county boundaries. The full method is on the national page.

Sources
  1. USGS, Consolidated Prospect- and Mine-Related Features from 7.5- and 15-Minute Topographic Quadrangle Maps of the United States (USMIN)
    597,612 point and area features digitized from about 106,350 historical topographic maps published 1886–2006; public domain (CC0). A feature is a map symbol, not a field-verified site, and the map does not say whether it was still worked.
  2. USGS Fact Sheet 2025–3003, The Abandoned Mine Inventory of the United States
    States that as of 2025 there is no comprehensive national inventory of abandoned mine features, and that the detailed national database now being built will not be published.
  3. OSMRE, Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System (e-AMLIS), public Problems layer
    One row per abandoned mine land problem in a problem area, with its type, funding program and reclamation status; mostly coal mined before the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Coordinates are the problem area's.
  4. MSHA, Mines dataset (Mine Data Retrieval System)
    Every mine registered with MSHA since the 1970s; a mine reads Abandoned or Abandoned and Sealed when its operator reported that status. Refreshed weekly.
  5. US Census Bureau, 2023 cartographic county boundaries (1:500,000)
    Each feature's county is assigned by its coordinates against these boundaries, not copied from the source file.
  6. GAO-20-238, Abandoned Hardrock Mines (March 2020)
    Federal agencies had identified at least 140,000 abandoned hardrock mine features on federal land and estimated more than 390,000 more not yet captured in their databases.
  7. Abandoned Hardrock Mine Reclamation (AHMR) Program, US Department of the Interior
    The program the USGS inventory is compiled for. Its appropriations and the 674,000 field-confirmed feature count on this page were provided by the program manager, Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance, and are cited with permission (2026-09-08).
  8. IMCC-NAAMLP Hardrock AML Report
    Page 48 carries the two figures this page leans on: USGS estimates 633,181 of the 725,690 mine features it recorded from historic topographic maps, 87 percent, are hardrock; and state and federal agencies have submitted more than 724,000 AML features to the national database being built, already more than the historic maps hold. Year-by-year AHMR funding is on page 35.