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<br />" <br /> <br />PHYS IOGRAPHY <br /> <br />The roughly fan-shaped watershed of the American River Basin lies on <br /> <br />the western slope of the central Sierra Nevada. It covers about <br /> <br />, 0~51 million hectares (1.26 million acres) and is the southern-most <br /> <br />drainage unit for that part of the Sierra Nevada included within the <br /> <br />Sacramento Basin Hydrologic Subre'gion of California (fig. 1). <br /> <br />The American River has its headwaters largely in the Crystal Range, <br />, - <br /> <br />a 72-km (45-mi) irregular segment of the Sierran Crest lying between <br /> <br />Donner Pass and Echo Pass west of Lake Tahoe. Three principal forks _ <br />the North, Middle, and South - converge northeast of the junction of <br /> <br />the American River with the Sacramento River. The North and South <br /> <br />Forks join in Folsom Lake behind the dam at Folsom, and the Middle <br /> <br />Fork joins the North Fork northeast of Auburn where the proposed <br /> <br />Auburn Dam will form another large reservoir. The Rubicon River, sev- <br /> <br />eral named forks, and iJUlumerable creeks and tributaries join the main <br /> <br />forks of the river to form a largely dendritic, well integrated drain- <br /> <br />age pattern. The Silver Fork, jOining the South Fork near Kyburz on <br /> <br />u.S. Highway No. 50, links drainage from some of the lOOuntainous slopes <br /> <br />around Carson Pass. <br /> <br />., <br /> <br />~re than 90 percent of the watershed lies northeast of Folsom Dam. <br /> <br />Here, at an elevation of about 120 m (400 ft), the bedrock coq>lex of <br /> <br />1 <br />