Nogal-Bonito
Deposit type & geology
Alkaline gold-copper breccia pipes and Ag-Pb-Zn(±Au,Mo) fissure veins, plus gold placers and a low-grade porphyry Mo-Cu occurrence.
Sierra Blanca Volcanics andesite intruded by three Oligocene alkaline stocks (Rialto, Bonito Lake, Three Rivers).
Age: 33–26 Ma (Oligocene), part of the Lincoln County porphyry belt — grouped by McLemore with White Oaks as one of the belt's two “more productive districts,” tied to unusually long-lived (>5 Ma) local magmatism.
Structural geology & terrain
Vein/structure orientation: Fissure veins mostly E-W, dipping >70° where mineralized; Parsons breccia pipe has a NE-trending long axis
Named controlling structure: Bonito fault (named, E-W shear zone — explicitly identified as the district's localizing structure)
Elevation range: ~8,050–9,000+ ft
Sierra Blanca basin, high country with a steep elevation/climate gradient, heavy snow.
High-resolution terrain
~6 m/pixel lidar-derived hillshade (USGS 3DEP) — fine enough to reveal old mine workings, waste-rock piles, trenches, and roads the statewide terrain layer can’t show.
Historical production
Estimated ~15,000–17,000 oz lode gold + 200 oz placer gold + 20,000 oz silver, 1865–1955 (McLemore et al. 2014, NMGS Guidebook 65), total value ~$300,000 — notably lower than an earlier, since-revised estimate of ~$1,000,000 (Thompson 1973), which McLemore et al. state was likely an overestimate not supported by USGS/USBM production records. The Parsons mine breccia pipe was the largest single producer (~75,000 tons of ore by 1918).
Sources: NMBGMR Circular 123 (Thompson 1973); NMBGMR Bulletin 67 (Griswold 1959); NMGS Guidebook 65 (McLemore, Goff & McIntosh 2014); NMBGMR OFGM-134; USGS MRDS researched — see sources
Current status
Inactive since its early-20th-century peak; 1980s–90s exploration examined the breccia-pipe potential (the Great Western prospect was estimated at 190,000 oz Au in 1989) but no modern permit or operator is on record specifically for Nogal.
Recency not verified
McLemore et al. (2014) note “many mining claims are active but no exploration or mining permits have been applied for.” A secondary aggregator reports 43 active BLM claims in the district as of retrieval, but no operator or program could be identified. The real 2020s activity in this porphyry belt (El Capitan Precious Metals, permit renewed for 2026) is in the adjacent Capitan Mountains district, not Nogal itself.
Land ownership & directions
The district spans more than one ownership type (e.g., patented claims inside BLM or National Forest land) — check the specific parcel, not just the district, before assuming access.
Mostly Lincoln National Forest (much of it within the White Mountain Wilderness), with scattered private patented claims and some adjacent BLM Roswell Resource Area land. Village of Nogal, Lincoln County, off US-380; Sierra Blanca range terrain, forest roads.
See specimen photos (mindat.org) → — this app doesn’t host specimen photos itself; this searches mindat.org’s own mineral-specimen database, which isn’t necessarily specific to this exact district.
This pin is a generalized district/historic-site reference point, not a surveyed claim boundary — routes may cross private or patented inholdings where public access isn’t guaranteed even if a road reaches the site. Backcountry mine areas commonly have unmarked shafts, unstable ground, and no cell service; confirm current access and safety conditions (land manager, county, or landowner) before heading out.
Tailings reprocessing potential
Early-20th-century mill processing of the Parsons breccia pipe (~75,000 tons) and other vein ore, using period-typical, lower-recovery technology.
This is a documentary heuristic, not assay data.The tier above is inferred from historic production era, processing method, and ore character already cited elsewhere on this page — nobody has sampled or assayed this district’s tailings as part of this research. Actual recoverable gold content can only be established by physical sampling.
Reprocessing tailings is regulated mining. Disturbing or reprocessing historic mill waste requires the same NM Mining Act permitting as new mining (see the regulatory companion guide), regardless of who currently holds the claim or surface rights — and ownership of the tailings material itself is a separate legal question from mineral rights on the underlying land.
Legacy tailings can be hazardous. Pre-modern processing commonly used mercury (amalgamation) or cyanide (heap leach), and can carry elevated arsenic and other heavy metals — not a casual sampling target, and disturbing contaminated material can carry real environmental liability.
Geologist’s read
Part of the same alkaline-belt gold story as Jicarilla and White Oaks, and McLemore's own research explicitly ranks it alongside White Oaks as one of the belt's two most productive districts — both sit atop unusually long-lived (over 5 million year) local magmatic systems, versus the nearby Capitan Mountains, where a shorter intrusive history produced only minor, scattered mineralization. Worth reading alongside the Jicarilla and White Oaks entries as a set.