7352

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7352
• Author: Woolley, R. R.
• Title: Editor
• USFW Year: Series
• USFW - Doc Type: 1930
• Copyright Material: NO

r
S THE GREEN Rl?rx n-NL
GENERAL FEATURES OF GREEN_ RIFER BASIN
LOCATION AND EXTENT
The Green River Basin comprises a little less than 45,000 sque
miles of high plateaus and mountains in southwestern Wyomir
northwestern Colorado, and northeastern Utah. Its extreme leng
from north to south is about 366 miles, in latitude 38° to 43°
north. Its extreme width from east to west is about, 346 mil
in longitude 106° 30' to 111° 30' west. The Green River flows sou
ward through the basin, and its total length from the junction
Trail and Wells Creeks, two small streams that unite to form
main. aem, to it>:11Tx49th is about 730 miles. About 291 miles
the stream Is in'Wt oming, 397 miles in Utah, and 42 miles
A drainage basin in Wyoming cos
Ccloredo . Thr` part of the drainan -
about' 17,600 square miles, in Utah 16,700 square miles, and
Colorado 10,600 square miles.
GEOGRAPHIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC FEATURES
This basin is a rudely triangular area embraced between
Rocky Mountains on the east and the. Wasatch Range on the
and extending from the sources of the Green River in the W
River Mountains on the north the to and of
of the ontin
'the south.' It is a part of tl great ,
and in many respects its topographic features are unique. Pope
describes some of these features very graphically, as follows:
Mountains, brills, plateaus, plains, and valleys are here found, as elsei
throughout the earth; but in addition to these topographic elements in the
features of the region we find butte-, outlying masses of stratified rocks,.,
of great altitude, not as dome-shaped or conical mounds but usually hi
angular outlines; their sides are vertical walls, terraced or buttressed, and bi
by deep, reentering angles, and often naked of soil and vegetation. great he
find lines of cliffs, abrupt escarpments. of rock, of great length and
revealing the cut edges of strata. swept away from the lower side. Tb
we find canyons, narrow gorges, scores or hundreds of miles in length and
_ dreds or thousands of feet in depth, with walls of precipitous rocks.
The north rim of the basin extends-froniAhe?Gros eII e =-
on the west to the Wind River Range on the east and form
boundary between the Green River and Snake River dra
basins. The Wind River Range, one of the ranges thehe CCoG
- -tat Divide, trends north-northwestward through the basin'
and forms_ the east boundary
}tart of Wyoming
roij
south as South Pass. For uaabout llYinto the Great D videf Ba
- - Mint the berm merges grad y
The P*k_
the east with no well-deftnYd fie demarcation
I U. s. 6WL Eipl. l9th Ya=: P.Wt, vol. 2, P= lei 1817 j88418 2, ?
-i YoQe? 7. w, 3raplammu otZ a Doloredo Ewer of the Wee' and rte tribnter?mr _
GREEN RIFER BASIN 9
which is a western portion of the great Rocky Mountain system,
forms the eastern boundary of the basin in Colorado, and from i'
it- south end a series of ridges bearing southwestward mark the
divide between the White. River and the upper Colorado River;
these ridges finally merge into the terraced plateaus that constitute
the southern part of the Green River Basin, in Utah.
The western boundary of the basin, beginning at the north end,
consists of long, narrow ridges, known as the Absaroka Ridges,
which form the southern flank of the Gros Ventre Range and merge
into the rolling plateau region on the south to the vicinity of
Evanston, where the divide between the Green River and Bear
River drainage basins is quite as ill defined as the eastern limit
adjoining the. Great Divide Basin. Beyond this point the Wasatch
fountains extend southward to the high plateau region that forms
the southern part of the Green River Basin.
Just south of the Utah-Wyoming line the transverse range of the
'Uinta Mountains marks the boundary between the broad valley
of the Green. River to the north and the broken plateau region to
the south. The Uinta Mountains stretch eastward from the middle t'
of the Wasatch Range for about 150 miles. The eastern third is
somewhat irregular in form, but the main body of the range is a
broad, single ridge with an average crest altitude of 10,000 to 11,000
feet, comprising a. forest-covered region of rounded glacier basins j
studded by hundreds of small lakes and scored by deep, straight
glacier canyons. East of the Green River the central ridge is.called k
the Escalante Hills, and these finally merge into the broad valley
of the Little Snake River on the north and the rolling foothills flank-
in the Park Range on the east. -,This eastern part of the Green
River Basin consists of open or comparatively plain country on
the north, rolling hills and mountains on the south, and badly eroded
;lateaus on the southwest. It is drained by the Tampa and,hite
Rivers, the principal tributaries of the Green River from the east.
Just south of Uinta Mountains, lying parallel and adjacent to them,
is the Uinta-Basins low_svnelinal._yalley.drained:by--the. D.uchesne --:---
River and its tributaries on the west and the lower part of the White,
River on the east. The south rim of this basin is the Tavaputs
hhteau, which is cut in twain by gorges of the Green River, the
L'enyon of Desolation and Gray Canyon. The eastern partis known
as East Tavaputs Plateau; the western as Vest Tavaputs Plateau - -. 'l
The district lying south of the Tavaputs tableland and east and
wuth of the High,Plateaus, extending far beyond the south limit of the Green Rivet Basin, is designated.by Powell' the Canyon f t . t7
Utah. tr1 its midst the Green empties into the Color"d 'and the _ j
1'riee and San'lWael flow:,htto the Green. }
°oRSll, 7, W., Report ou the lands of the ar:d.-41on of the ''aped Statss,'2d ed., p. ]96,1979