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Introduction <br />At the request of J. E. Stover & Associates, Inc. of Grand Junction, Colorado, Grand <br />River Institute (GRI) was contracted by New Elk Coal Company, LIX (NECQ to complete a <br />Class Ill cultural resources inventory of a block area of 180 acres for a proposed expansion of <br />a Refuse Disposal Area (RDA) in Las Animas County, Colorado. The project area is situated <br />within the Beaubien and Miranda (Maxwell) Land Grant. The Class III (pedestrian) field <br />work was performed on the 5th and 6th of September 2011 by G RI archaeologist Lucas <br />Piontkowski. Report preparation was conducted by Carl E. Conner (Principal Investigator). <br />Curtis Martin, Hannah Mills, and Barbara Davenport of Grand River Institute under State of <br />Colorado Archaeological Permit 2011-71 and BLM Antiquities Permit No. C-52775. <br />The inventory was conducted to meet requirements of the National Environmental <br />Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321), the Federal Land Policy and Management Act <br />of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1701), and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (U.S.C. <br />470aa gL§Sq., as amended). These laws are concerned with the identification, evaluation, and <br />protection of fragile, non-renewable evidences of human activity, occupation and endeavor <br />reflected in districts, sites, structures, artifacts, objects, ruins, works of art, architecture, and <br />natural features that were of importance in human events. Such resources tend to be <br />localized and highly sensitive to disturbance. <br />Location of the Project Area <br />The project area is located within the steep slopes north of and adjacent to State <br />Highway 12 which follows the Pugatoire River west of Trinidad, turns north outside of <br />Stonewall and terminates just north of La Veta. Colorado at US Highway 160. The mute was <br />designated a Scenic Byway in1989, Specifically, the study area lies approximately 2.7 miles <br />east of Stonewall, Colorado. within T. 33 S., R. 68 W.. unsectioned (within the Bcaubien and <br />Miranda (Maxwell) Land Grant); 6th P.M. (Figure 1). <br />Environment <br />The proposed project is within the Raton Basin, a structural basin that is an <br />asymmetric synclinal basin containing sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Devonian to <br />Holocene. The Basin forms the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, immediately cast of the <br />Sangre de Cristo Range. The sedimentary rocks are intruded by igneous plugs, dikes, and <br />sills of Eocene and Oligocene age (Johnson 1969). East Spanish Peak and West Spanish <br />Peak are formed from two large granitic intrusives. Dikes trend east-northeast to west- <br />southwest. Basaltic sills tend to intrude along coal beds. The Raton Basin was a coastal <br />plain at the end of the Cretaceous and beginning of Tertiary time, and has a well preserved <br />sequence of rocks spanning the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (Pillmore 1991). <br />