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<br />reported Pleistocene to historic movement along the Frontal fault of <br />the Gore Range about 70 miles (I 16 km) west of Denver and about 60 <br />miles (100 km) north of Buena Vista. Based lazgely on these published <br />papers, Matthews (1973) called for reappraisal of seismic risk in <br />Colorado based on geologic evidence rather than historic seismicity. <br />Questions were also raised concerning the seismic safety of the Rocky <br />Flats Weapons Plant northwest of Denver. <br />Detailed studies of Neogene (<27 mybp) tectonics and Quaternary <br />faulting in Colorado reached print in the middle 1970s. The Geological <br />Society of America (Curtis, ed., 1975) published a series of papers <br />describing significant Neogene structural deformation in Colorado. A <br />year later, Witkind (1976) of the USGS published anopen-file report <br />showing known and suspected active faults in Colorado. At about the <br />same time, West (1978) conducted a study of recent movement along <br />the Frontal fault of the Gore Range (Tweto and others, 1970); and the <br />Colorado Geological Survey (CGS) released an open-file report <br />providing a preliminary overview of earthquake hazards in Colorado. <br />This latter report was finalized in 1981 and published as CGS Bulletin <br />43 (Kirkham and Rogers, 1981). <br />Largely as a result of the work by Scott (1970), Witkind (1976) and <br />Kirkham and Rogers (1981) and an increased public awareness of the <br />earthquake hazazd issue, site-specific seismotectonic hazard evalua- <br />tions were performed for a number of projects in the state. Converse, <br />Wazd, Davis, Dixon (1980), in conducting studies for Spinney <br />Mountain dam 60 miles (f00 km) southwest of Denver and 31 miles <br />(52 km) east of the Trout Creek dam site, found strong evidence of late <br />Pleistocene (13-30 thousand years before present) faulting and <br />proposed a local maximum credible earthquake (MCE) of Richter <br />magnitude M,,=6.2. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) found <br />evidence of Quatemary fault displacement near Buena Vista in Chaff <br />ee County, 4 miles (6.5 km) west of Buena Vista, and neaz Ridgway in <br />Ouray County. Trenching of fault scarps near Buena Vista disclosed <br />evidence of recurrent fault movement with 0.1 meter of Holocene <br />(<10,000 ybp), single-event displacement (Ostenaa and others, 1980). <br />A 5-station seismic net surrounding the Ridgway site detected over 50 <br />events (Richter magnitude M,, -0.25 to 2.73) during a three month <br />period of operation (Sullivan and others, 1980). <br />In 1979, the upper Arkansas Valley became the focus of comprehen- <br />sive seismotectonic studies conducted by the U.S. Bureau of <br />6 <br />