Notes
From "The Mountains of New Mexico," by Robert Hixson Julyan, pages 220-221:
"The Socorro Mountains are a small group, separated from the Chupadera Mountains on the south by Socorro Canyon and US 60, and from the Lemitar Mountains on the north by Nogal Canyon. Like their sibling mountains, the Socorro Mountains are comprised of a Precambrian igneous core overlaind by sedimentary formations, later capped by much more recent volcanic deposits. The faulting along the Rio Grande Rift that uplifted this block is best seen on the steep scarp on the east face of Socorro Peak.
"It was this volcanism that created the mountains' silver and lead deposits. Though early Spanish workings have been reported, extensive mining did not begin until 1867, when English-speaking prospectors from Magdalena discovered commercially viable mineral deposits. Silver was the main ore, and the Merritt-Torrance vein, the district's richest, averaged fifteen to twenty ounces of silver per ton. Mining began in earnest in the 1880s, and soon three smelters were operating nearby. In 1889, the NM School of Mines, now NM Institute of Mining and Technology, was established. In a gesture that would be understood at colleges everywhere, mining students painted a huge M on the slopes of Socorro Peak, which is still referred to locally as M Mountain. Falling silver prices in the 1890s aborted most mining, though sporadic operations continued into the 1920s.
"Blasting still occurs in the Socorro Mountains, however, for research rather than mining. Near Socorro Peak is a thirty-two-square-mile field laboratory owned by NM Tech and used by the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center to study explosives. This has not prevented a herd of desert bighorn sheep from living in the mountains. * * * * *
"Geologically, the mountains are very young - and still growing. Beneath the town of Socorro is the Socorro Midcrustal Magma Body, which has made the area the most seismically active site in New Mexico during the past hundred years. Indeed, the strongest earthquake recorded in New Mexico, 6.5 on the Richter scale, occurred here in 1906. The magma chamber is about twelve miles beneath the Rio Grande Valley and its surface is rising about 0.08 inches per year. At that rate it will reach the surface in seven hundred twenty-six thousand years * * *."