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environmental scientists and engineers <br /> Mid-Continent Resources Inc. <br /> Coal Basin Mines <br /> Steep Spoil Revegetation Test Plots <br /> On September 11, 1989, vegetation cover and production were measured on five-year- <br /> old plots established on steel)spoil slopes at three separate subalpine locations at Mid- <br /> Continent's Coal Basin mines. Plot locations are designated Mine #1, Mine#4 and <br /> Mine #5. Eight plots were originally established. Three 50 foot by 100 foot plots <br /> were established at the Mi #4 and Mine#5 locations; two 50-foot by 150 foot plots <br /> were established at Mine L Each plot was seeded, fertilized and mulched in <br /> September, 1984. The seed(mixture used at all plots was identical. Further details of <br /> the establishment of the plots, including maps showing plot locations and layout, have <br /> been transmitted previously to the Division of Mined Land Reclamation. <br /> =Only six plots were monitored in 1989: one of the three plots at Mine#5 has been lost <br /> and the two plots at Aline #1 were so severely eroded that they were combined and <br /> treated as one plot. <br /> Transect and(quadrat Sampling Methods <br /> Vegetation cover was measured in each plot using two 50-foot line transects. Transects <br /> were delineated using a tape measure stretched across the plots about two feet above the <br /> ground. At one-foot intervals along each transect,a specially designed non-magnifying <br /> telescope was used to sight vertically from the tape toward the ground. Whatever was <br /> intersected by the crosshairs of the telescope was recorded as a "hit"—a species of <br /> plant, plant litter, or bare ground or rock. One hundred hits were recorded in each <br /> plot. <br /> Vegetation production was easured using 0.25 m2 quadrats. Quadrats were located at <br /> five-foot intervals along a ch of the 50-foot vegetation cover line transects—ten <br /> quadrats per transect. Withi each quadrat,the green weight of each plant species was <br /> visually estimated. Vegetation from four plots was harvested by clipping. The <br /> harvested material was weighed to determine moist weight, oven-dried, and weighed <br /> again. Field estimates of green weight production were subsequently converted to <br /> oven-dry weights. <br /> Sampling Results <br /> Table 1 shows the vegetation cover data by plot. Vegetation cover ranges from 21 <br /> percent to 37 percent. Table 2 summarizes these data for each location and over all <br /> locations (values <0.05 percent are reported as zero). Mean vegetation cover is 21.0 <br /> percent, 30.3 percent and, 28.5 percent for Mine #1, Mine #4 and Mine #5, <br /> respectively,and 26.6 percent averaged over all plots. Expressing these data as relative <br /> cover reveals cicer milkvetch and orchardgrass as the most abundant species, <br /> 1 <br />