Unnamed Thermal Spring
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Out in Grant County, twenty-five miles from Silver City, an unnamed thermal point puts up water in the upper seventies. Elevation runs about 4,600 feet, low for this part of New Mexico. There is no owner attached to it and no public access status. A short walk off a road with no name attached gets you there, and that is close to everything known about it.
Lower, warmer country than the Gila high forest, with only a few inches of snow a year and a dozen inches of rain. The road is around two hundred yards away, name unrecorded. No campground is listed close enough to matter. The record says nothing about who holds the land or what surrounds the spring.
The single sample, from September 1955, was noticeably alkaline with chloride present. That is the full chemistry on file. Winter is the favored season. Confirm ownership before visiting; nothing says it is public. No fee, no pool on record. Expect the temperature to be as dated as the sample.
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 this spring.
- Setting
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the west.
- Highest ground nearby
- 61 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the west
A slice through the ground from west to east, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 5% 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.
Springs Near This Spring
More Springs Around 77°F
Alkaline Springs (pH ~8.7)
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