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eh <br />ESPEY, HUSTON &ASSOCIATES, INC. <br /> <br />1.2 STUDY AREA <br />The mine plan azea which is located north of Meeker, Colorado, in the <br />upper drainage basin of the White River, is part of an uplift which directly connects <br />the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to the Wasatch Mountains in Utah via the Book and <br />Road cliffs. A regional map of the azea is presented in Fig. L-1. The mine site <br />encompasses a vaziety of habitats, with aspects ranging in elevation from <br />2,112 meters near the Rienau No. 2 (G-Seam) Mine portal to 2,499 meters on the <br />ridge line south of the Northern No.l (FF-Seam) Mine portal. Habitats aze <br />mountain meadow, including stock ponds and Curtis Creek at the relatively low to <br />intermediate elevations, sagebrush at intermediate elevations and mountain shrub <br />and aspen from intermediate to high elevations. Slopes range from steep in the <br />canyon cut by Curtis Creek, to gentle in the meadow and sagebrush, to moderate in <br />the mountain shrub and aspen. Aspects include a western and eastern exposure of <br />mountain shrub where Curtis Creek cuts through the general uplift of the azea, a <br />southern exposure in the meadow, ponds, and sagebrush and a northern exposure in <br />the mountain shrub and aspen. <br />1.3 LITERATURE REVIEW <br />Northwestern Colorado has been a "boom" and "bust" mining azea since <br />gold was discovered in 1861. The same pattern has held for fur-beazing animals. <br />Some initial descriptions of the wildlife and their habitat came from the <br />Dominguez-Escalante Expedition of 1776. After 1800, fur trappers moved into the <br />azea. Trapping continued for 40 yeazs until the fur-bearing wildlife populations <br />collapsed (Athearn, 1977). <br />The first extensive zoological surveys in the area did not occur until <br />1905, when Cary (1911) surveyed mammals and 1909 when Felger (1910) surveyed <br />birds. Since that time, little was accomplished until the recent oil shale and coal <br />mining activity triggered new interest in the biological makeup of this sparsely <br />populated section of Colorado. <br />L-2 <br /> <br />