Pittsburg (Shandon)
Deposit type & geology
Placer gold, derived from quartz veins in Precambrian granite/schist exposed along the Caballo Mountains escarpment.
Precambrian granite and schist.
Age: Not independently confirmed this session.
Structural geology & terrain
Vein/structure orientation: Placer-dominant; minor NW-trending veins in granite, no dip given
Named controlling structure: Not found — stream/terrace drainage geometry controls the placers, not a fault
Elevation range: ~4,501 ft
Low rolling hills near Caballo Reservoir, easy vehicle access — unlike most other districts in this batch.
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
~8,000 oz Au (NMBGMR Resource Map 24 and McLemore 1994 Table 1 independently agree on this figure) / ~$175,000 in placer gold (Circular 5) — placer-dominant, distinct from the nearby Hillsboro-Kingston district.
Sources: NMBGMR Circular 5; NMBGMR Resource Map 24; New Mexico Geology v.16 n.2 (McLemore 1994) researched — see sources
Current status
Historic placer producer; current status not independently verified this session. NMBGMR names Pittsburg as one of five NM districts with ongoing recreational panning today (with Jicarilla, White Oaks, Hillsboro, and Orogrande).
Recency not verified
Current claim/permit status was not independently researched this session.
Land ownership & directions
Land ownership for this district was not independently confirmed in this session's research — verify directly before relying on it.
Caballo Mountains, Sierra County — not independently confirmed this session. Caballo Mountains, Sierra County.
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
Placer-dominant (per NMBGMR Circular 5) — same reasoning as Hopewell: less of a traditional milled-tailings target.
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
A minor but cleanly cross-verified district (two independent sources agree on ~8,000 oz) — included at the edge of this map's significance threshold for completeness, distinct from the much larger Hillsboro-Kingston district in the same county.