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Approximately 84 percent of the surface acreage of the proposed permit area is owned by <br />Colowyo. Approximately 7% is federal lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management <br />(BLM), and 9% state (Colorado). The mine operation, as proposed, will consist of several pits <br />operating within 7,402 (more or less) permitted acres of which 3,810 acres may be disturbed by <br />mining. These acreages aze unchanged by the Application. <br />3.2.3 Coal Resources to be Mined <br />Eight major coal seams are mined in the Colowyo operation, "Y", "X," "A", "B", "C", "D", "E" <br />and "F" (TR 42, page 5). The seams vary in thickness from 2.5 to 15 feet, and overburden vazies <br />as a function of swctural geology and topography. <br />3.2.4 Topography <br />The active mining site lies just west of the northward flowing Goodspring Creek, which is <br />paralleled by Colorado Highway 13. The area is a gently sloping upland ranging from about <br />7,640 feet neaz the southwest comer to 6,560 feet near the northeast comer of the permit area. <br />Valleys that cut into the upland surface are generally narrow, V-shaped, and about 250 to 500 feet <br />deep. The topographic surface north of the proposed active mine site is dominated by two ridges <br />about two miles long, trending north-northeast, bounded by Goodspring, Taylor and Wilson <br />Creeks. <br />3.2.5 Geology <br />Geologic information is found in Sections 2.04.6, Maps 7 through 9A, and Exhibit 6 of the <br />Permit. The permit area lies about six miles south of the axis of the Axial Basin Anticline, a <br />large northwest-trending fold found in the southern Uinta region of the Piceance Basin. The <br />anticline structure and corresponding syncline to the south consist of thousands of feet of marine <br />deposited sediments of Cretaceous age. <br />