Aztec Ruins National Monument Aztec Ruins National Monument preserves structures and artifacts of Ancestral Pueblo people from the 1100s through 1200s. People associated with Chaco Canyon to the south built and used the structures, then people related to the Mesa Verde region to the north used the site in the 1200s. Located in Northwest New Mexico.
Bandelier National Monument On the canyon-slashed slopes and bottoms of the Pajarito Plateau are the ruins of many cliff houses and Located near Los Alamos and White Rock, New Mexico.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park Established to preserve Carlsbad Cavern and numerous other caves within a Permian-age fossil reef, the park contains over 85 known caves, including Lechuguilla Cave—the nation's deepest limestone cave at 1,567 feet (478m) and third longest. Carlsbad Cavern, with one of the world's largest underground chambers and countless formations, is highly accessible, with a variety of tours offered year-round. Located in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Chaco Culture National Historic Park Chaco Culture National Historical Park preserves one of America's richest and most facinating cultural and historic areas. Chaco Canyon was a major center of ancestral Puebloan culture between A.D. 850 and 1250. It was a hub of ceremony, trade, and government for the prehistoric Four Corners area - and a phenomenon unlike anything before or since. Located in San Juan County, in northwestern New Mexico.
El Malpais National Monument Volcanic features such as lava flows, cinder cones, pressure ridges and complex lava tube systems dominate the landscape. Closer inspection reveals unique ecosystems with complex relationships. Sandstone bluffs and mesas border the eastern side, providing access to vast wilderness. Located at Grants, New Mexico.
El Morro National Monument "Inscription Rock" is a soft sandstone monolith, rising 200 feet above the valley floor, on which are carved hundreds of inscriptions. The monument also includes pre-Columbian petroglyphs and Pueblo Indian ruins. Located at Ramah, New Mexico.
Fort Union National Monument Fort Union was established in 1851 by Lieutenant Colonel Edwin V. Sumner as a guardian and protector of the Santa Fe Trail. During it's forty-year history, three different forts were constructed close together. The third and final Fort Union was the largest in the American Southwest, and functioned as a military garrison, territorial arsenal, and military supply depot for the southwest. Located at Watrous, New Mexico.
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument offers a glimpse of the homes and lives of the people of the Mogollon culture who lived there from the 1280s through the early 1300s. The surroundings probably look today very much like they did when the cliff dwellings were inhabited. It is surrounded by the Gila National Forest and lies at the edge of the Gila Wilderness, the nation's first designated wilderness area. Located forty-four miles north of Silver City, New Mexico.
New Mexico - Capulin Volcano National Monument Capulin Volcano, a nearly perfectly-shaped cinder cone, stands more than 1200 feet above the surrounding High Plains of northeastern New Mexico. The volcano is long extinct, and today the forested slopes provide habitat for mule deer, wild turkey, black bear and other wildlife. Abundant displays of wildflowers bloom on the mountain each summer.
Pecos National Historical Park Pecos preserves 10,000 years of history including the ancient pueblo of Pecos, two Spanish Colonial Missions, Santa Fe Trail sites and the site of the Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass. The park was expanded in 1990 to 6,600 acres. Since park expansion is new, some areas are not yet open to visitors. Located two miles south of Pecos, New Mexico.
Petroglyph National Monument More than 20,000 prehistoric and historic Native American and Hispanic petroglyphs (images carved in rock) stretch 17-miles along Albuquerque. New Mexico's West Mesa escarpment. Associated archeological sites provide important chapters in a 12,000 year- long story of human life in the Albuquerque area.
Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument By the late 1670s the entire Salinas District, as the Spanish had named it, was depopulated of both Indian and Spaniard. What remains today are austere yet beautiful reminders of this earliest contact between Pueblo Indians and Spanish Colonials: the ruins of four mission churches, at Quarai, Abó, and Gran Quivira and the partially excavated pueblo of Las Humanas or, as it is known today, Gran Quivira. Located at Mountainair, New Mexico.
White Sands National Monument At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain ringed valley, the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world's great natural wonders - the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Here, great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert and have created the world's largest gypsum dune field.