Pecos

Pecos is a village in San Miguel County, New Mexico, at the mouth of Pecos Canyon.[1] The DB's specimen list — pyrite, tourmaline, garnet, mica, bornite, actinolite, lepidolite — points to the historic Pecos Mine at Terrero (also spelled Tererro), about 13 miles up NM-63 into the canyon. Discovered in 1883, the Pecos Mine became New Mexico's largest single producer of zinc, lead, gold, and silver by 1927, working an amphibolite-hosted ore zone rich in pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, and tourmaline.[2] The mine closed in 1950, and the site later became an EPA-level remediation project after decades of tailings contamination reached the Pecos River — worth knowing before you go, even though the immediate mine-dump area is a documented rockhounding stop.[3][4]

From the village of Pecos, take NM-63 north about 13 miles into Pecos Canyon to the Terrero store; take the road up the hill for about 1 mile to reach the mine dump area near a Forest Service campsite.[4]

Surface picking and light digging through the mine dump/tailings piles along the roadside — no hardrock excavation needed. Bring a rock hammer and eye protection for breaking float; this is a roadside/dump-picking site, not a technical dig.

The land around Pecos Canyon is mostly Santa Fe National Forest, U.S. Forest Service public land, with some mineral rights managed by the BLM.[3] The Terrero Mine site itself was designated for EPA-level cleanup in the 1990s after acid mine drainage killed tens of thousands of trout in the Pecos River and cost roughly $28 million to remediate — a documented contamination history worth being aware of even though the dumps are a known collecting stop.[3] Confirm current conditions and any posted closures with the Santa Fe National Forest's Pecos/Las Vegas Ranger District before visiting.