Mining Incidents
Search Operators Mines Alerts Research Controllers Fatalgrams About
Countries
Peru Chile
English Español
Abandoned mines › Texas
Abandoned mine inventory

Abandoned mines in Nueces County, Texas

Nueces County, Texas has 28 mine and prospect features on USGS topographic maps published 1951–1979; 2 of the features carry a name on the map. 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 Nueces 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)
28
Mine openings
0
OSMRE problems unreclaimed
0
MSHA mines marked abandoned
21
2 features carry a name0 prospect pits9 quadrangle maps, published 1951–1979 0 MSHA mines abandoned and sealed
What the features are
  1. Mines and surface workings
    labelled mines, open pits, strip mines, placer and hydraulic workings
    7 25.0%
  2. Quarries, gravel and borrow pits
    construction-material and industrial-mineral extraction
    20 71.4%
  3. Dumps, tailings, spoil and gob
    what mining left above ground
    1 3.6%
Named features on the maps2 named · from the USGS compilation
Name on map Feature
Topsoil Pits Open Pit Mine or Quarry
Topsoil Pits Open Pit Mine or Quarry

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.

MSHA-registered mines with status Abandoned21 on register
  1. Ballard Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Smithcon Inc · MSHA ID 4103479
    Abandoned
  2. Benchmark Materials LLC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Benchmark Materials LLC · MSHA ID 4105119
    Abandoned
  3. CALALLEN MATERIALS LTD LLP
    Surface metal/non-metal · Calallen Materials · MSHA ID 4104310
    Abandoned
  4. Carson Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bay Ltd · MSHA ID 4103149
    Abandoned
  5. Continental Materials Incorporated
    Surface metal/non-metal · Continental Materials Inc · MSHA ID 4103243
    Abandoned
  6. Corpus Christi Plant
    Facility metal/non-metal · Centex Cement Corp · MSHA ID 4102377
    Abandoned
  7. Corpus Christi Plant
    Facility metal/non-metal · Cimbar Resources, Inc. · MSHA ID 4104002
    Abandoned
  8. Corpus Christi Sand Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · C & G Materials Company · MSHA ID 4102459
    Abandoned
  9. Dock Crusher
    Facility metal/non-metal · Bay Ltd · MSHA ID 4103444
    Abandoned
  10. J L Equipment Leasing Incorporated
    Surface metal/non-metal · J L Equipment Leasing Inc · MSHA ID 4103147
    Abandoned
  11. Jurica Pit
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bay Ltd · MSHA ID 4103691
    Abandoned
  12. LOGO MATERIALS INC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Logo Materials Inc · MSHA ID 4103323
    Abandoned
  13. LOM-Calallen
    Surface metal/non-metal · Live Oak Materials Inc · MSHA ID 4104284
    Abandoned
  14. Northern White Sand LLC
    Surface metal/non-metal · Northern White Sand LLC · MSHA ID 4105013
    Abandoned
  15. Plant Number 3
    Surface metal/non-metal · Wright Materials Inc · MSHA ID 4101521
    Abandoned
  16. QUALITECH STEEL CORP IRON CARBID
    Facility metal/non-metal · Qualitech Steel Corp · MSHA ID 4104001
    Abandoned
  17. SANDY 624
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bay Ltd · MSHA ID 4103263
    Abandoned
  18. SARATOGA PIT
    Surface metal/non-metal · Saratoga Materials · MSHA ID 4104218
    Abandoned
  19. Star Fire Port Services
    Facility coal · Star Fire Port Services Inc · MSHA ID 4104049
    Abandoned
  20. Suntide Sand Pit Incorporated
    Surface metal/non-metal · Suntide Sand Pit Inc · MSHA ID 4103252
    Abandoned
  21. Tale Lake
    Surface metal/non-metal · Bay Ltd · MSHA ID 4103881
    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
Gravel Pit 15
Disturbed Surface 5
Sand Pit 2
Sand and Gravel Pit 2
Open Pit Mine or Quarry 2
Sand Pit 1
Tailings - Pond 1
Other counties in TexasAll 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.