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EXHIBIT I- SOILS INFORMATION <br />Site investigation of soils type and availability reflect a wide range of soil thickness <br />depending on location and slope. Soils present reflect a dazk, almost black organic rich <br />surface layer 0-6" with a course, rocky component. Soil is gravelly, with angular rock <br />fragments grading to a very rocky component as one moves downward in the soil <br />horizon. Soils viewed above the highwalt support alpine grasses, forbes, lodgepole pine., <br />Douglas fu, Engleman spruce, and aspen stands and can be as much as six feet thick in <br />localized areas. Other zones of exposed soil along the highwall contact reflect soil <br />thickness at about one foot and quickly grading to highly angutaz sub-soil and fractured <br />bedrock within 3 feet from surface. Thick soil horizons are also evident in Iocaiized <br />areas along the Taylor Gulch drainage channel, where tree growth has protected soils <br />from erosion and transport from the bottom of the basin by storm events or seasonal snow <br />melt run-off. Soil occurrence over the marble bed is variable, with a zone (2-3 acres <br />max.) of Bricker soil (possibly 1-2') for a short distance just north of the present <br />disturbance, followed by an azea of little to no soil covering the mazble bedrock outcrop <br />as it is followed to the northern end of the affected land area. Past alpine glaciation may <br />have removed volumes of soil at the head of Taylor Basin, reflected in the lack of soil <br />horizon in this area as compazed to the slopes flanking the basin. Soils north of the <br />currently disturbed lands are very rocky, with large (12") angulaz rocks exposed on the <br />surface and mixed with float material from igneous and metamorphic bedrock exposed at <br />the ridgeline'/. mile or more above the western affected land boundary line. <br />In general, site soil characteristics reflect high organic material content within the first six <br />inches of surface, course textures with high percolation potentials, albeit fair to good <br />moisture retention characteristics. Soils appeaz to support a variety of alpine vegetation <br />including grasses, forbes, and tree species and do not appear to be a limiting factor in <br />regards to nutrient source nor volume of soil available for re-vegetation of disturbed <br />areas. <br />United State Forest Service soils surveys show three soil types mapped at this site, the <br />Howazdville family soil type found in the bottom areas neighboring Taylor Gulch and the <br />mine site, Howardville-Leighcan families complex, occurring over the southern portions <br />of the affected lands primarily within the heavily timbered areas south and west of the <br />mining zone, and Moran family-Rock outcrop-Teewinot family complex, found on the <br />western slope of Taylor Basin north and west of the mining zone. Future mining progress <br />will incur primarily Moran family type soils. Amore detailed discussion of soils follows <br />from appropriate sections of the 2005 Draft of the USFS Northern San Isabel and <br />Western Pike National Forest Soil and Ecological Land Unit Survey: <br />20 <br />