Our May School for Advanced Research (SAR) trip took us to the Cerrillos Hills to look at old turquoise and lead mines and to the San Marcos pueblo archeological site.

Two of our local guides. Bill Baxter and Joan Mathion. All three of the people who led the tour were very knowledgeable.

Todd Brown holds an example of the kind of turquoise vein that was sought here in the Cerrillos hills.

This looks like a ditch, but it actually an ancient turquoise mine.

Bill explains some of the geology and history of the area. Patricia is in the foreground.

This is a real vein of turquoise still in the mine.

In more modern times (after 1900) commercial mining for lead and turquoise took place here. The pit is a holding area for water spill and water extracted from a mine.

A large nest built into the side of one of the hills.

This is all debris from the mining that was done with stone tools.

Even the trees find life is hard here.

This "mine shaft" is about three-and-ahalf feet high.

In front of the group the rock was dug out by had with stone tools.

I climbed down to the little mine shaft I mentioned earlier and tried to get a picture of the vein of turquoise still visible.

Looking into the Galliteo Basin.

Searching for another photo op.

This mine goes 40 or 50 feet back. I had no intention of crawling in.

Down into the mine pit at Mt. Chalchihuitl. This is the largest know pre-historic turquoise pit in North America and the Tiffany Mine is another important pre-historic turquoise mine modified by extensive U.S. Territorial Period turquoise mining.

Looking up from the floor of the pit. Remember that this was dug out by hand with stone tools.