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Soils in the survey area are residual fine to medium coarse sandy loams <br />with many angular sandstone pebbles. Bedrock outcrops occur in scattered <br />locations, particularly along the higher ridges and deeply incised gulches. <br />Local bedrock is predominantly upper Cretaceous sandstones, shales, and coal beds <br />of the Iles, and Williams Fork Formations and the Lewis Shale (Tweto 1979). A <br />few areas are also mantled by Quaternary alluvium and gravels. <br />Vegetation in the project area is dominated by cultigens and weedy <br />colonizers in fallow or abandoned fields. Planted and volunteer cultigens noted <br />during survey were wheat and alfalfa. Dormant fields were dominated by thistle, <br />brome, crested wheat, sweetclover, and other weedy grasses and forbs. <br />Uncultivated areas supported tall sage, serviceberry, needlegrass, fescue, <br />lupine, globemallow, prickly pear cactus, and other grasses and forbs. Drainage <br />bottoms and poorly drained areas support dense brush, wildrye, sedges and forbs. <br />The uncultivated areas provide excellent habitat for deer and pronghorn antelope. <br />Except along protected drainage bottoms, vegetation was generally open through <br />most of the project area, in both cultivated and uncultivated areas. Areas of <br />high thistles support an abundant and aggressive insect population, but have an <br />open understory. Surface visibility was very good to excellent. Small areas of <br />dense vegetation, with poor surface visibility, were along Bell Rock Gulch and <br />the lower coulee bottoms near the Yampa River in Section 19. <br />Historical land use in the area has been characterized by farming and <br />ranching with sporadic development of energy and mineral resources. <br />Existing Data and Literature Review <br />The entire permit area was files searched in the fall of 1994 as part of <br />a inventory of the 1994 solid core drill holes (Barclay 1994). A files search <br />was requested from the Colorado Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation <br />on October 10, 1994. The cultural resource files of the BLM Little Snake <br />Resource Area were consulted on October 11, 1994. On July 18. 1995, after <br />specific map locations were provided for the present project, more detailed <br />information was obtained from the BLM Little Snake Resource Area for site 5MF456. <br />This previously recorded site was located along the seismic corridor at Bell Rock <br />Gulch. Results of the files searches are reported in the earlier inventory <br />report (Barclay 1994). Site 5MF456 was the only previously recorded site within <br />or close to the present survey areas. <br />The project area is within the Northwest Colorado Prehistoric Context <br />(Grady 1984) and the Colorado Plateau Country Historic Context (1984). The <br />reader is referred to those documents for discussions of the culture history and <br />research issues of the general area. Anticipated cultural resources in the <br />upland settings of the current project were farming and ranching related <br />buildings, structures or artifacts, sites associated with mineral exploration or <br />development, and possibly prehistoric isolated finds or small artifact scatters. <br />Prehistoric resources were considered to be much more likely on the terraces and <br />lower benches in the Yampa River Valley. These settings in the present project <br />area have been cultivated. but may still retain significant prehistoric resources <br />beneath the plow zone or in undisturbed areas near drainages. Particular <br />