REV100254 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

~::;,. '~~ West Elk Drill Pads, Panels ] 8 to 24, Cultural Report hj Soils in the survey azea are light to medium brown residual medium fine loamy sands or sandy clay loams with many boulders and bedrock outcrops. The soil is typically shallow and poorly consolidated, except in small areas of canyon floors. Local bedrock is predomhiantly sandstones and ,,,, shales of the Upper Cretaceous 1~lesaverde Formation. At several locations in the north flowing canyons there were exposures of river cobbles from one or more fossil river beds within the ~,;` sandstones and conglomerates of the Tertiary Ohio Creek Formation. Many of the water-rounded ~'~ cobbles and boulders were granitic Local ridges and mesas aze capped by resistant Mesa Verde sandstone. ~w a ~'a: ~;,,; M1+ZS r°=; i If' I Several vegetation zones were observed. Much of the western half of the West Flatiron is dominated by open sagebrush meadows and small groves of Gambel oak. Fir trees are located along the north and west facing slopes with a few individual trees atop the Flatiron. The eastern half of the West Flatiron is dominated by a mix of aspen and Gambel oak with pockets of sagebrush meadow. The canyons and gulches aze densely wooded. Most of the smaller gulches have a mix of aspen, oak, spruce, and fir with the conifers tending to dominate in more enclosed or sheltered settings. Several solitary box elders were noted in'.hese gulches. Box Canyon is more open than the srnaller gulches and contains a variety of trees and brush. Trees noted in Box Canyon that were spazse or absent in the gulches included box elder, mountain maple, and narrow leaf cottonwood. CULTURE HISTORY AND PREVIOUS WORK A files seazch was conducted through the Colorado Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP), and the files of the Grand Valley Ranger District were also consulted. Previous cultural resource projects in the azea have included several lineaz corridors along the North Fork Gunnison River valley and numerous small drill pad and access sluveys for stratigraphic cores and degas vents in the project vicinity. Few sites have been documented in the legal sections containing the project azea or in nearby legal sections. These have included two historic coal mines (the Oliver Mine, SGN254, and the Hawks Nest Mine, SGN1561), an historical grave mazker (SGN1494), and a prehistoric isolated find (SGN1390). All of the latter resources are on the north side of the river valley. None of the known cultural resources are within the project area. Some of the underground workings of the Oliver Mine aze in Section 15 east of Sylvester Gulch, but no aboveground features were observed. The project area is in the western edge of the Colorado Mountains historic and the Gunnison River Unit ofthe Northern Colorado River Basin prehistoric RP3 Contexts (Mehls 1984; Reed and Metcalf 1999). The reader is referred to those documents for discussions of the general culture history and reseazch issues of the region. STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES Following state and federal policies and regulations implementing Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (Public Law 89-665) as amended, this project area was inventoried to identify any cultural resources within the APE of the proposed project. Any discovered cultural resources were to be evaluated for eligibility to the Register under the Criteria for Eligibility (36 CFR §60.4 a-d). Register eligibility is evaluated iri terms of the integrity of the resource, and: (a) its association with significant events, or patterns in history or prehistory; (b) its association with the MtnCoalWestElkPanels18to24Cult(210-50)rpt - 2 - 10/30/2001