Ojo De Las Canas
Ojo De Las Canas is a tepid, salty spring in Socorro County, about eight miles from Socorro off Quebradas Road. Warm in the high seventies, below soaking temperature. The notable thing is the salt: total dissolved solids over 3,000, which is a lot. Alkaline, with iron. Access is unrecorded; no owner is on file.
About 350 yards from Quebradas Road, at around 5,000 feet. Desert, very dry, seven inches of rain and about as much snow. The form of the spring is undescribed. There is a photograph on file. Quebradas Road is the only name in the record besides the spring's own. Land owner and unit are blank, and summers here are hot.
Water Canyon Campground is twenty miles away. The 1981 sample is the chemistry on file. Check access, since the road could cross private ground. The climate figures say winter. With water this salty and this cool, the interest is in the chemistry.
Aircraft with laser scanners measured this ground to within inches. The scan strips out trees and buildings, leaving the bare shape of the land around Ojo De Las Canas.
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
- Setting
- Valley floor
- Gentle slopes rise on both sides.
- Highest ground nearby
- 191 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northeast
A slice through the ground from southwest to northeast, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 38% of the springs on this site.
Heat flow measures the warmth working its way up through the ground from deep inside the earth. Where it runs high, rain and snowmelt that seep down through cracks in the rock come back up hot.
See every spring on the geothermal heat map →
Heat flow estimate: Stanford Thermal Earth Model (Aljubran & Horne, 2024), CC BY 4.0.
The water at Ojo De Las Canas is slightly alkaline (pH 8.0) with 3100 mg/L total dissolved solids. It is notably rich in calcium (may support bone density and joint health), magnesium (known for muscle relaxation and stress relief), and sulfate (traditionally used for skin conditions and inflammation).
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This campground is located at an elevation of 6,800 feet in the Magdalena Mountains.
Ojo De Las Canas is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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