1.
Weld County, Colorado
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Weld County is one of the 64 counties of the U. S. state of Colorado. As of the 2010 census, the population was 252,825, Weld County comprises the Greeley, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Denver-Aurora, CO Combined Statistical Area. On May 30,1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act created the Nebraska Territory, present-day Weld County, Colorado, lay in the southwestern portion of the Nebraska Territory, bordering the Kansas Territory. In July 1858, gold was discovered along the South Platte River in Arapahoe County and this discovery precipitated the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. Many residents of the region felt disconnected from the remote territorial governments of Kansas and Nebraska. The following month, the Jefferson Territorial Legislature organized 12 counties for the new territory, St. Vrain County was named in honor of Ceran de Hault de Lassus de St. Vrain, the French trader who established the first trading post on the upper South Platte River. St. Vrain County encompassed much of what is today Weld County, the Jefferson Territory never received federal sanction, but on February 28,1861, U. S. President James Buchanan signed an act organizing the Territory of Colorado. On November 1,1861, the Colorado General Assembly organized 17 counties, including Weld County, Weld County was named for Lewis Ledyard Weld, a lawyer and territorial secretary. He died while serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, until February 9,1887, Weld Countys boundaries included the area now comprising Weld County, Washington County, Logan County, Morgan County, Yuma County, Phillips County, and Sedgwick County. Graham was tried and convicted of the crime, and executed in 1957, in northeastern Weld County, Minuteman III missile silo N-8, one of the many unmanned silos there, was the target of symbolic vandalism by Catholic peace activists in 2002. In 2013, conservative Weld County commissioners began a campaign to secede from the State of Colorado, the legality of this initiative has been questioned by local attorneys. On Nov 5th,2013,6 out of 11 Colorado counties voted no for secession, elbert, Lincoln, Logan, Moffat, Sedgwick, and Weld counties voted no, while Cheyenne, Kit Carson, Phillips, Washington, and Yuma counties voted yes. Weld County also holds the distinction of having the most confirmed tornado sightings in the U. S. from 1950-2011, with 252 confirmed reports. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 4,017 square miles. It is the third-largest county in Colorado by area, along the western border hilly areas betray the presence of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains further west. The county is served by two highways, I-25 runs through the southwestern corner and I-76 from the south central edge northeastward to the Morgan county border. Other major roads include US85 and US34, which intersect near Greeley, and State Highway 14, pawnee National Grassland Fort Vasquez State History Museum St. The population density was 45 people per square mile, there were 66,194 housing units at an average density of 17 per square mile
2.
Colorado
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Colorado is a state in the United States encompassing most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,540,545 on July 1,2016, the state was named for the Colorado River, which Spanish travelers named the Río Colorado for the ruddy silt the river carried from the mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28,1861, Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State because it became a state in the same year as the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence. Colorado is noted for its landscape of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers. Denver is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado, residents of the state are properly known as Coloradans, although the term Coloradoan has been used archaically and lives on in the title of Fort Collins newspaper, the Coloradoan. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the states which have boundaries defined solely by lines of latitude and longitude. The summit of Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet elevation in Lake County is the highest point in Colorado, Colorado is the only U. S. state that lies entirely above 1,000 meters elevation. The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado and this point, which holds the distinction of being the highest low elevation point of any state, is higher than the high elevation points of 18 states and the District of Columbia. A little less than one half of the area of Colorado is flat, East of the Rocky Mountains are the Colorado Eastern Plains of the High Plains, the section of the Great Plains within Nebraska at elevations ranging from roughly 3,350 to 7,500 feet. The Colorado plains were mostly prairies, but they have many patches of forests, buttes. Eastern Colorado is presently covered in farmland and rangeland, along with small farming villages. Precipitation is fair, averaging from 15 to 25 inches annually, corn, wheat, hay, soybeans, and oats are all typical crops, and most of the villages and towns in this region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator. Irrigation water is available from the South Platte, the Arkansas River, and a few other streams, however, heavy use of ground water from wells for irrigation has caused underground water reserves to decline. As well as agriculture, eastern Colorado hosts considerable livestock, such as cattle ranches. Roughly 70% of Colorados population resides along the edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado. This region is protected from prevailing storms that blow in from the Pacific Ocean region by the high Rockies in the middle of Colorado. The Front Range includes Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley and other townships, on the other side of the Rockies, the significant population centers in Western Colorado are the cities of Grand Junction, Durango, and Montrose
3.
Greeley, Colorado
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The City of Greeley is the Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Weld County, Colorado, United States. Greeley is in northern Colorado and is situated 49 miles north-northeast of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. According to a July 2015 estimate by the U. S. Census Bureau, the population of the city is 100,883, Greeley is a major city of the Front Range Urban Corridor. The town was named after Horace Greeley, editor of the New-York Tribune and it was founded as the Union Colony in 1869, an experimental utopian society, but the name was later changed in honor of Horace Greeley. Governor Benjamin Harrison Eaton declared Greeley an official city on April 6,1886, Greeley was built on farming and agriculture but kept up with most modern technologies as they grew. Telephones were in town by 1883 with electric lights downtown by 1886, automobiles were on the roads alongside horse drawn buggies by 1910. KFKA became one of the first radio stations to broadcast in the USA in 1922, Greeley housed two POW camps in 1943, during World War II. One was for German POWs and the other was for Italian POWs, a vote to allow the sale of alcohol passed by a mere 477 votes in 1969, thus ending Temperance in the city. The Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra was started in 1911, in 1958, Greeley became the first city to have a Department of Culture. Greeley is still growing and changing today, its population has more than doubled since 1970, Greeley is located in the area previously occupied by the Overland Trail station of Latham. The Latham station was built in 1862 and named in honor of Milton S. Latham, the stagecoach station was at the confluence of the South Platte River and the Cache la Poudre River. It is believed that here occurred the birth of the first white child born in Colorado, fort Latham was the headquarters of the government troops during the Indian conflicts of 1860-64 and the county seat. Greeley began as the Union Colony, which was founded in 1869 as a utopian community based on temperance, religion, agriculture, education. Meeker, a reporter from New York City. The name Union Colony was later changed to Greeley in honor of Horace Greeley, who was Meekers editor at the New York Tribune, Greeley is located at 40°24′54″N 104°43′26″W. Elevation above sea level is 4,658 feet, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 30.0 square miles, of which 29.9 square miles is land and 0.1 square miles is water. Greeley is bordered on the south by the towns of Evans and Garden City, the Greeley/Evans area is bounded on the south by the South Platte River, and the Cache la Poudre River flows through north Greeley. Highways 85 and 34 is often cited as the location of Greeley, Greeley contains the western terminus of State Highway 257 and borders State Highway 392 on the north
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
United States Forest Service
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The United States Forest Service is an agency of the U. S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nations 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres. Major divisions of the include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations. Managing approximately 25% of federal lands, it is the major national land agency that is outside the U. S. Department of the Interior. The concept of the National Forests was born from Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation group, Boone and Crockett Club, in 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. Hough was appointed the head of the office, in 1881, the office was expanded into the newly formed Division of Forestry. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized withdrawing land from the domain as forest reserves. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed the Bureau of Forestry, gifford Pinchot was the first United States Chief Forester in the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. As of 2009, the Forest Service has a budget authority of $5.5 billion. The Forest Service employs 34,250 employees in 750 locations, including 10,050 firefighters,737 law enforcement personnel, and 500 scientists. The mission of the Forest Service is To sustain the health, diversity and its motto is Caring for the land and serving people. As the lead agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection, management, and use of the nations forest, rangeland. The agencys ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological, economic, and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current, the everyday work of the Forest Service balances resource extraction, resource protection, and providing recreation.5 billion trees per year. Further, the Forest Service fought fires on 2,996,000 acres of land in 2007, the Forest Service organization includes ranger districts, national forests, regions, research stations and research work units and the Northeastern Area Office for State and Private Forestry. Each level has responsibility for a variety of functions, the Chief of the Forest Service is a career federal employee who oversees the entire agency. The Chief reports to the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, there are five deputy chiefs for the following areas, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Research and Development, Business Operations, and Finance. The Forest Service Research and Development deputy area includes five stations, the Forest Products Laboratory. Station directors, like regional foresters, report to the Chief, Research stations include Northern, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, Rocky Mountain, and Southern. There are 92 research work units located at 67 sites throughout the United States, there are 80 Experimental Forests and Ranges that have been established progressively since 1908, many sites are more than 50 years old
6.
United States National Grassland
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National Grassland is a classification of protected and managed federal lands in the United States authorized by Title III of the Bankhead–Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937. For administrative purposes, they are identical to United States National Forests. Like National Forests, National Grasslands may be open for hunting, grazing, mineral extraction, recreation, various National Grasslands are typically administered in conjunction with nearby National Forests. All but three National Grasslands are on or at the edge of the Great Plains and those three are in southeastern Idaho, northeastern California, and central Oregon. The three National Grasslands in North Dakota, together with one in northwestern South Dakota, are administered jointly as the Dakota Prairie Grasslands, National Grasslands are generally much smaller than National Forests. Whereas a typical National Forest would be about 1,000,000 acres, the largest National Grassland, the Little Missouri National Grassland in North Dakota, covers 1,028,784 acres, which is approximately the median size of a National Forest. As of September 30,2007, the area of all 20 National Grasslands was 3,838,280 acres. The catastrophic Dust Bowl of the 1930s led to the creation of the Soil Conservation Service in 1933 and this and subsequent federal laws paved the way for establishing national grasslands. Grassland Prairie Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands List of U. S. National Forests Wilderness preservation systems in the United States
7.
Eastern Plains
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The Eastern Plains of Colorado refers to a region of the U. S. state of Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains and east of the population centers of the Front Range. The Eastern Plains are part of the High Plains, which are the westernmost portion of the Great Plains, the region is characterized by mostly rolling plains, divided by the South Platte River and Arkansas River valleys. There are also several deciduous forests, canyons, buttes, the Eastern Plains rise from approximately 3,400 feet at the eastern border of Colorado with Kansas, where the Arkansas River leaves the state, to 7,500 feet east of the Denver Basin. Most of the Eastern Plains region lies within Colorados 4th congressional district, the Eastern Plains have a semi-arid climate and receive little rainfall. Much of the area relies on irrigation to survive, summers are typically hot and dry, often bringing thunderstorms, which are often severe, to the area, with some occasionally forming landspouts and tornadoes. Eastern Colorado winters are cold and dry, with significant snowfalls, temperatures can sometimes fall to -40 to -30 degrees Fahrenheit in extreme cold waves, although this is rare. Eastern Colorado was once home to many Native American tribes, the Plains Indians that lived in the region included the Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Pawnee, and Sioux. The Ute people formally ruled all over central and western Colorado, the Comanche once ruled all over southeastern Colorado, and the Jicarilla Apache ruled in southeastern Colorado as well. In 1541, the Spanish came to the now known as the south eastern portion of Colorado. Not having found any gold, the Spanish largely left the area untouched, during the late 17th and 18th century Spain and France claimed southeastern Colorado. In 1803 the United States gained possession of the land east of Rocky Mountains with the Louisiana Purchase, Pike was sent by the federal government to lay out the boundary lines of territory in 1806. This expedition investigated the area now known as Colorado Springs, the prominent mountain in the area was named Pikes Peak after Pike, the leading commander of the exploration. There were multiple expeditions sent to lay out and explore the territory throughout the early 1800s and this created multiple trading posts with fur trades attracting many backcountry adventurers. There was still no permanent settlement created until after the conclusion of the Mexican War in 1848, San Luis was founded on the Culebra River in 1851. Spanish-speaking settlers who had moved north from New Mexico founded it, San Luis was shortly followed by settlements of San Pedro, San Acacio and Guadalupe. The Eastern Colorado plains are among the most sparsely populated areas in the continental United States, the Dust Bowl devastated the region and further accelerated this outmigration. Kiowa County demonstrates the population decline and its associated effects, both the Pawnee National Grasslands and Comanche National Grasslands are located in the Eastern Plains. They are composed of marginal farmlands that were withdrawn from agriculture, Eastern Colorado is largely farmland, with many small farming communities
8.
South Platte River
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The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U. S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and it joins the North Platte River in western Nebraska to form the Platte, which then flows across Nebraska to the Missouri. The river serves as the source of water for eastern Colorado. In its valley along the foothills in Colorado, it has permitted agriculture in an area of the Colorado Piedmont and Great Plains that is otherwise arid. The river is formed in Park County, Colorado, southwest of Denver in the South Park grassland basin by the confluence of the South Fork and Middle Fork, approximately 15 miles southeast of Fairplay. Both forks rise along the flank of the Mosquito Range, on the western side of South Park. From South Park, it passes through 50 miles of the Platte Canyon, here, it is joined by the North Fork before emerging from the foothills southwest of the Denver suburb of Littleton. At Littleton, the river is impounded to form Chatfield Reservoir, the river flows north through central Denver, which was founded along its banks at its confluence with Cherry Creek. The valley through Denver is highly industrialized, serving generally as the route for both the lines, as well as Interstate 25. On the north side of Denver it is joined somewhat inconspicuously by Clear Creek, North of Denver it flows through the agricultural heartland of the Piedmont. East of Greeley it turns eastward, flowing across the Colorado Eastern Plains, past Fort Morgan and Brush and it continues past Sterling, and runs into Nebraska between Julesburg, Colorado and Big Springs, Nebraska. In Nebraska, it passes south of Ogallala and joins the North Platte River near the city of North Platte. The South Platte River through Denver is on the U. S. EPAs list of impaired waterbodies for pathogen impairment, other water issues involve the appearance of the New Zealand Mud Snail and of the Zebra Mussel. The South Platte was originally called Niinéniiniicíihéhe by the native Arapaho people who lived on its banks, the early Spanish explorers called it the Rio Chato. The South Platte River also served as a water source in Colorado. Long before the city of Denver was created many travelers came to the South Platte River to escape the arid Great Plains and these people could survive the heat but not without the vital water source that the South Platte River gave them. Buckets and wells sufficed as a system for a while. In an arid region of the United States, the South Platte is marked with several dams, the first notable water impoundment on the South Platte is Antero Reservoir
9.
Sterling, Colorado
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Sterling is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Logan County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 18,211 at the 2010 census, Sterling is located at 40°37′32″N 103°12′42″W. It is 128 miles northeast of Denver, and is located on Interstate 76, According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.9 square miles, all of it land. A post office called Sterling has been in operation since 1874, the community was named for Sterling, Illinois, the native home of a railroad official. Sterling is the largest city in Northeastern Colorado and the county seat of Logan County, Sterling is the home of Northeastern Junior College, a residential two year liberal arts college in Colorado. Sterling is the shopping hub for most of northeastern Colorado and hosts stores like Wal-Mart, The Home Depot. Penney, as well as local retailers located primarily on Main Street. Sterling is a center for health care as well, and is the home of the Sterling Regional Medical Center. The Colorado Department of Corrections operates the Sterling Correctional Facility in Sterling, just a few miles northeast of Sterling is located the North Sterling State Park, situated on the North Sterling Reservoir, a man-made lake fed by waters from the South Platte River. This new state park has three state of the art boat ramps, and three camping areas with over 150 camping sites, as well as multiple picnicking sites. The park is famous for its swimming, boating, waterskiing, camping. Pheasant, duck, and deer hunting are excellent in the high plains, Sterling is the home of two beautiful golf courses, Riverview Golf Course and the Northeastern Eighteen, each offering excellent 18-hole courses. Museum admission is three dollars, and picnic grounds are adjacent, the Recreation Center now has an indoor pool with a capacity of 225, including the diving well and an outdoor pool with a capacity of nearly 450. The largest attraction at the pool is the double flumed slide, complete with a translucent blue speed slide about 130 feet long, picnic tables and chairs can accommodate over 300 patrons and the seven shade structures provide plenty of protection from the suns ultra violet rays. Http, //www. sterlingcolo. com/pages/dept/plr/reccenter. php According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Sterling has a semi-arid climate, crosson Field Municipal Airport serves Sterling, but there are no scheduled flights available from there. The closest airport served by scheduled flights is Denver International Airport, Sterling is also served by railroads, although only freight carriers serve the town. The main rail operator is Burlington Northern Santa Fe, but other operators, like Union Pacific, the closest Amtrak station is located in Fort Morgan, about 47 miles away. Scheduled bus service is offered by Black Hills Stage Lines with service to Ft. Morgan and Denver in Colorado, as well as number of cities in Nebraska including North Platte, Kearney, and Omaha
10.
Colorado State Highway 14
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State Highway 14 in the U. S. state of Colorado is an east–west state highway approximately 237 miles long. It provides the most direct route from Fort Collins westward via Cameron Pass to Walden and Steamboat Springs, and eastward across the plains to Sterling. The highway is two-lane along its route, except for portions near Fort Collins where it is concurrent with U. S. Highway 287. The western terminus of the highway is on the continental divide, the eastern terminus is at a junction with U. S. Highway 6 in Sterling. The entire length of the highway is kept open year-round, despite its western end being on the continental divide itself, Route 14 through Cameron Pass can be one of the more reliable routes across the Front Range mountains in stormy winter weather. Going eastward from Muddy Pass southeast of Steamboat Springs, it transverses through North Park and it then transverses along the southern end of the Medicine Bow Mountains at Cameron Pass, where it enters Larimer County. It joins U. S. Highway 287 southbound at Teds Place and it is concurrent with U. S. Route 287 southward to Fort Collins, where it splits from 287, going east from downtown Fort Collins along East Mulberry Street and reaching Interstate 25 at exit 269. East of I-25, it enters Weld County and passes through Ault, East of Ault, it enters a sparsely populated area of the high plains in eastern Weld County, where it passes through three small towns, Briggsdale, New Raymer, and Stoneham. Along this stretch it passes alongside several parcels of the Pawnee National Grasslands and its eastern terminus at Sterling is in central Logan County, along the South Platte River, just across the river from Interstate 76. The section of the road in Fort Collins that is concurrent with Jefferson Street and Riverside Avenue follows a section of the Overland Trail, the section in Fort Collins was known as the Denver Road. The section up the Poudre Canyon was built in the 1920s, the route as a Colorado state highway was established in the 1920s from its current western terminus all the way to Nebraska. In 1926, US38 took over its routing from Sterling, its current eastern terminus, the route was paved in 1936 from Fort Collins to Ault. The entire route was paved by 1963, and the section of the route concurrent with U. S. Highway 6 east of Sterling was eliminated in 1968. The only gap left was eliminated in 1979
11.
Wyoming
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Wyoming /waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/ is a state in the mountain region of the western United States. The state is the tenth largest by area, the least populous, Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. Cheyenne is the capital and the most populous city in Wyoming, the state population was estimated at 586,107 in 2015, which is less than the population of 31 of the largest U. S. cities. The Crow, Arapaho, Lakota, and Shoshone were some of the inhabitants of the region. Southwestern Wyoming was included in the Spanish Empire and then Mexican territory until it was ceded to the United States in 1848 at the end of the Mexican–American War. The region acquired the name Wyoming when a bill was introduced to Congress in 1865 to provide a government for the territory of Wyoming. The territory was named after the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, with the name ultimately being derived from the Munsee word xwé, wamənk, the mineral extraction industry—especially coal, oil, natural gas, and trona—along with the travel and tourism sector are the main drivers behind Wyomings economy. Agriculture has historically been an important component of the economy with the main commodities being livestock, hay, sugar beets, grain. The climate is generally semi-arid and continental, being drier and windier in comparison to the rest of the United States, except for the 1964 election, Wyoming has been a politically conservative state since the 1950s, with the Republican party winning every presidential election. Wyoming is one of three states to have borders along only straight latitudinal and longitudinal lines, rather than being defined by natural landmarks. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area, from the north border to the south border it is 276 miles, and from the east to the west border is 365 miles at its south end and 342 miles at the north end. The Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, the state is a great plateau broken by many mountain ranges. Surface elevations range from the summit of Gannett Peak in the Wind River Mountain Range, at 13,804 feet, to the Belle Fourche River valley in the states northeast corner, at 3,125 feet. In the northwest are the Absaroka, Owl Creek, Gros Ventre, Wind River, in the north central are the Big Horn Mountains, in the northeast, the Black Hills, and in the southern region the Laramie, Snowy and Sierra Madre ranges. The Snowy Range in the central part of the state is an extension of the Colorado Rockies in both geology and appearance. The Wind River Range in the west central part of the state is remote and includes more than 40 mountain peaks in excess of 13,000 ft tall in addition to Gannett Peak, the highest peak in the state. The Big Horn Mountains in the central portion are somewhat isolated from the bulk of the Rocky Mountains
12.
Nebraska
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Nebraska /nᵻˈbræskə/ is a state that lies in both the Great Plains and the Midwestern United States. Its area is just over 77,220 sq mi with almost 1.9 million people and its largest city is Omaha, which is on the Missouri River. The state is crossed by many trails and was explored by the Lewis. Nebraska was admitted as the 37th state of the United States in 1867 and it is the only state in the United States whose legislature is unicameral and officially nonpartisan. Nebraska is composed of two major regions, the Dissected Till Plains and the Great Plains. The Dissected Till Plains is a region of rolling hills. The Great Plains occupy most of western Nebraska, characterized by treeless prairie, the state has a large agriculture sector and is a major producer of beef, pork, corn, and soybeans. Two major climatic zones are represented in Nebraska, the half of the state has a humid continental climate, and the western half. Indigenous peoples lived in the region of present-day Nebraska for thousands of years before European exploration. The historic tribes in the state included the Omaha, Missouria, Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, when European exploration, trade, and settlement began, both Spain and France sought to control the region. In the 1690s, Spain established trade connections with the Apaches, by 1703, France had developed a regular trade with the native peoples along the Missouri River in Nebraska, and by 1719 had signed treaties with several of these peoples. After war broke out between the two countries, Spain dispatched an expedition to Nebraska under Lieutenant General Pedro de Villasur in 1720. The party was attacked and destroyed near present-day Columbus by a force of Pawnees and Otoes. The massacre of the Villasur expedition effectively put an end to Spanish exploration of Nebraska for the remainder of the 18th century, in 1762, during the Seven Years War, France ceded the Louisiana territory to Spain. Frances withdrawal from the area left Britain and Spain competing for dominance along the Mississippi, by 1773, later that year, Mackays party built a trading post, dubbed Fort Carlos IV, near present-day Homer. In 1819, the United States established Fort Atkinson as the first U. S. Army post west of the Missouri River, the army abandoned the fort in 1827 as migration moved further west. European-American settlement did not begin in any numbers until after 1848, on May 30,1854, the US Congress created the Kansas and the Nebraska territories, divided by the Parallel 40° North, under the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The Nebraska Territory included parts of the current states of Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, the territorial capital of Nebraska was Omaha
13.
Arapaho National Forest
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Arapaho National Forest is a National Forest located in north-central Colorado, United States. The facility is managed jointly with the Roosevelt National Forest and the Pawnee National Grassland from the United States Forest Service office in Fort Collins and it has a wildlife refuge which manages a protection for all birds and mammals. The combined facility of 1,730,603 acres is denoted as ARP by the Forest Service, separately, Arapaho National Forest consists of 723,744 acres. The forest is located in the Rocky Mountains, straddling the divide in the Front Range west of Denver. It was established on July 1,1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, the forest includes part of the high Rockies and river valleys in the upper watershed of the Colorado River and South Platte River. The forest is largely in Grand and Clear Creek counties, but spills over into neighboring Gilpin, Park, Routt, Jackson, there are local ranger district offices located in Granby and Idaho Springs. The ponds also produce many insects and other invertebrates needed by most female waterfowl for successful egg laying and these insects also serve as an essential food item for the growth of ducklings and goslings during the summer months. The first waterfowl arrive in the spring when the ice vanishes in April, the peak migration occurs in late May when 5,000 or more ducks may be present. Canada geese have been reestablished in North Park and begin nesting during April, duck nesting usually starts in early June and peaks in late June. The forest produces about 9,000 ducklings and 150 to 200 goslings each year, the Fish and Wildlife Service expects that when refuge lands are fully acquired and developed, waterfowl production should increase significantly. There have been 198 bird species recorded in the forest, primary upland nesting species include the mallard, pintail, gadwall, and American wigeon. A number of diving ducks, including the lesser scaup and redhead, nest on the larger ponds, most species may be observed during the entire summer season. Fall migration reaches its height in late September or early October when up to 8,000 waterfowl may be present, the wetlands also attract numerous marsh, shore, and water birds. Sora and Virginia rails are numerous but seldom seen, if they are present, Wilsons phalarope, American avocet, willet, sandpipers, Greater yellowlegs, and dowitchers will be easy to observe. Other less common species include great blue heron, black-crowned night heron, American bittern, the upland hills harbor sage grouse year around with a winter population of more than 200 birds. Golden eagles, several species of hawks, and a prairie falcon circle the skies above in search of food. Their prey includes Richardsons ground squirrel, white-tailed prairie dog, badger, muskrat, beaver, coyote, and pronghorn are commonly observed. It is also possible to see a raccoon, red fox, mink, long-tailed weasel, as many as 400 mule deer have wintered here and up to 200 elk are frequently seen during the winter months
14.
Roosevelt National Forest
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The Roosevelt National Forest is a National Forest located in north central Colorado. It is contiguous with the Colorado State Forest as well as the Arapaho National Forest, the forest is administered jointly with the Arapaho National Forest and the Pawnee National Grassland from offices in Fort Collins, and is denoted by the United States Forest Service as ARP. The forest encompasses an area of the foothills on the eastern side of the continental divide of the Front Range in Larimer County. In Larimer County it includes the valleys of the Cache la Poudre. It includes forested areas along both sides of the Poudre Canyon and along the north and east sides of Rocky Mountain National Park, smaller parts of the forest also extend into northern Gilpin and extreme northwestern Jefferson counties. The Roosevelt National Forest is divided into two districts, the Canyon Lakes Ranger District, with offices in Fort Collins. The Roosevelt National Forest began in 1897 as part of the Medicine Bow Forest Reserve and it was renamed the Colorado National Forest in 1910, and was renamed to honor President Theodore Roosevelt in 1932. The forest has an area of 813,799 acres. Several volunteer groups work with the US Forest Service to help manage the Roosevelt National Forest, there are six officially designated wilderness areas lying within Roosevelt National Forest that are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Four of them extend into neighboring National Forests, and one of these also onto National Park Service land
15.
U.S. Forest Service
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The United States Forest Service is an agency of the U. S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nations 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres. Major divisions of the include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations. Managing approximately 25% of federal lands, it is the major national land agency that is outside the U. S. Department of the Interior. The concept of the National Forests was born from Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation group, Boone and Crockett Club, in 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States. Hough was appointed the head of the office, in 1881, the office was expanded into the newly formed Division of Forestry. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized withdrawing land from the domain as forest reserves. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed the Bureau of Forestry, gifford Pinchot was the first United States Chief Forester in the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. As of 2009, the Forest Service has a budget authority of $5.5 billion. The Forest Service employs 34,250 employees in 750 locations, including 10,050 firefighters,737 law enforcement personnel, and 500 scientists. The mission of the Forest Service is To sustain the health, diversity and its motto is Caring for the land and serving people. As the lead agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection, management, and use of the nations forest, rangeland. The agencys ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological, economic, and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current, the everyday work of the Forest Service balances resource extraction, resource protection, and providing recreation.5 billion trees per year. Further, the Forest Service fought fires on 2,996,000 acres of land in 2007, the Forest Service organization includes ranger districts, national forests, regions, research stations and research work units and the Northeastern Area Office for State and Private Forestry. Each level has responsibility for a variety of functions, the Chief of the Forest Service is a career federal employee who oversees the entire agency. The Chief reports to the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, there are five deputy chiefs for the following areas, National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Research and Development, Business Operations, and Finance. The Forest Service Research and Development deputy area includes five stations, the Forest Products Laboratory. Station directors, like regional foresters, report to the Chief, Research stations include Northern, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Southwest, Rocky Mountain, and Southern. There are 92 research work units located at 67 sites throughout the United States, there are 80 Experimental Forests and Ranges that have been established progressively since 1908, many sites are more than 50 years old
16.
Fort Collins, Colorado
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Fort Collins is the Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, with a 2016 estimated population of 161,000, it is the fourth most populous city in Colorado after Denver, Colorado Springs, and Aurora. Fort Collins is a college city, home to Colorado State University. Fort Collins was founded as a military outpost of the United States Army in 1864 and it succeeded a previous encampment, known as Camp Collins, on the Cache La Poudre River, near what is known today as Laporte. Camp Collins was erected during the Indian wars of the mid-1860s to protect the Overland mail route that had recently relocated through the region. Travelers crossing the county on the Overland Trail would camp there, the post was manned originally by two companies of the 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry and never had walls. Settlers began arriving in the vicinity of the fort nearly immediately, the fort was decommissioned in 1867. The original fort site is now adjacent to the present historic Old Town portion of the city, the first school and church opened in 1866, and the town was platted in 1867. The civilian population of Fort Collins, led by local businessman Joseph Mason, led an effort to relocate the county seat to Fort Collins from LaPorte, the citys first population boom came in 1872, with the establishment of an agricultural colony. Hundreds of settlers arrived, developing lots just south of the original Old Town, tension between new settlers and earlier inhabitants led to political divisions in the new town, which was incorporated in 1873. Although the Colorado Agricultural College was founded in 1870, the first classes were held in 1879, the 1880s saw the construction of a number of elegant homes and commercial buildings and the growth of a distinctive identity for Fort Collins. Stone quarrying, sugar-beet farming, and the slaughter of sheep were among the areas earliest industries, in 1901 the Great Western sugar processing plant was built in the neighboring city of Loveland. Although the city was affected by the Great Depression and simultaneous drought, it nevertheless experienced slow, during the decade following World War II, the population doubled and an era of economic prosperity occurred. Old buildings were razed to make way for new, modern structures, along with revitalization came many changes, including the closing of the Great Western sugar factory in 1955, and a new city charter, adopting a council-manager form of government in 1954. Similarly, Colorado State Universitys enrollment doubled during the 1960s, making it the primary economic force by the end of the century. During that same period, civil activism and anti-war disturbances heightened tensions in the city. During the late 20th century, Fort Collins expanded rapidly to the south, adding new development, management of city growth patterns became a political priority during the 1980s, as well as the revitalization of Fort Collins Old Town with the creation of a Downtown Development Authority. In late July 1997, the city experienced a flood after
17.
National Park Service Ranger
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These comprise the two main disciplines of the ranger profession in the National Park Service. The origin of the term dates to the 14th century in England. Rangers patrolled royal forests and parks to prevent poachers from hunting game belonging to the crown. The title Ranger in the sense was first applied to a reorganization of the Fire Warden force in the Adirondack Park. The name was taken from Rogers Rangers, a small force famous for their woodcraft that fought in the area during the French, the term was then adopted by the National Park Service. Though small in number, their influence is large, many and long are the duties heaped upon their shoulders. If a trail is to be blazed, it is send a ranger. If an animal is floundering in the snow, a ranger is sent to him out, if a bear is in the hotel, if a fire threatens a forest, if someone is to be saved. If a Dude wants to know the why, if a Sagebrusher is puzzled about a road, everything the ranger knows, he will tell you, ex-cept about himself. Yount was hired in 1880 to enforce the prohibition on hunting in the park, in addition to these duties, he would act as a guide and escort for visiting officials, such as he did in 1880 for the Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz. Although he was paid a salary of $1,000 he resigned at the end of 1881. Yount pointed out that it was impossible for one person to protect the game properly over the parks vast expanse. The Park Ranger position in the Federal Government began as a series of specialized positions in the miscellaneous Series, in 1959 the official Park Ranger position was established throughout the Federal Government. Along with its companion series the Park Technician, the Park Ranger position was designated for professional work like management of the park, or management of division. The Park Technician series was designed to handle routine technical skills, i. e. giving walks, talks, patrolling roads, the agreement also required that the park service begin using other appropriate technical series for lower paid positions. The Protection Ranger series was changed to GL-0025 in 2005,0025 – Park Ranger Series* The duties are to supervise, manage, and/or perform work in the conservation and use of Federal park resources. Beginning in 1985, the service made this adjusment, today, Park Ranger like duties are handled by a range of employees, wearing the traditional green and gray uniforms, who are not park rangers. These positions include,0303 – Miscellaneous Clerk and Assistant Series, duties include clerical, assistant, or technician work when other series are not appropriate
18.
Great Plains
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The region is known for supporting extensive cattle ranching and dry farming. The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies, some geographers include some territory of northern Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at the Rio Grande. The term Great Plains is used in the United States to describe a sub-section of the even more vast Interior Plains physiographic division and it also has currency as a region of human geography, referring to the Plains Indians or the Plains States. There is no region referred to as the Great Plains in The Atlas of Canada, in terms of human geography, the term prairie is more commonly used in Canada, and the region is known as the Prairie Provinces or simply the Prairies. The region is about 500 mi east to west and 2,000 mi north to south, much of the region was home to American bison herds until they were hunted to near extinction during the mid/late 19th century. It has an area of approximately 500,000 sq mi, current thinking regarding the geographic boundaries of the Great Plains is shown by this map at the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The term Great Plains, for the region west of about the 96th or 98th meridian, nevin Fennemans 1916 study, Physiographic Subdivision of the United States, brought the term Great Plains into more widespread usage. Before that the region was almost invariably called the High Plains, today the term High Plains is used for a subregion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains are the westernmost portion of the vast North American Interior Plains, during the Cretaceous Period, the Great Plains were covered by a shallow inland sea called the Western Interior Seaway. However, during the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene, the seaway had begun to recede, leaving thick marine deposits. During the Cenozoic era, specifically about 25 million years ago during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, existing forest biomes declined and grasslands became much more widespread. The grasslands provided a new niche for mammals, including many ungulates and glires, traditionally, the spread of grasslands and the development of grazers have been strongly linked. The vast majority of animals became extinct in North America at the end of the Pleistocene. In general, the Great Plains have a variety of weather through the year, with very cold and harsh winters and very hot. Wind speeds are very high, especially in winter. Grasslands are among the least protected biomes, humans have converted much of the prairies for agricultural purposes or to create pastures. The Great Plains have dust storms mostly every year or so, the 100th meridian roughly corresponds with the line that divides the Great Plains into an area that receive 20 in or more of rainfall per year and an area that receives less than 20 in. The region is subjected to extended periods of drought, high winds in the region may then generate devastating dust storms
19.
Dust Bowl
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The drought came in three waves,1934,1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust, which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust – named black blizzards or black rollers – traveled cross country, reaching as far as the East Coast and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, on the Plains, they often reduced visibility to 1 metre or less. While the term the Dust Bowl was originally a reference to the area affected by the dust, today it is usually used to refer to the event. The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres that centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, the Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of families to abandon their farms. The Dust Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, elevation ranges from 2,500 feet in the east to 6,000 feet at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The area is semiarid, receiving less than 20 inches of rain annually, the region is also prone to extended drought, alternating with unusual wetness of equivalent duration. During wet years, the soil provides bountiful agricultural output. The region is subject to high winds. During early European and American exploration of the Great Plains, this region was thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture, the lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture. The federal government encouraged settlement and development of the Plains for agriculture via the Homestead Act of 1862, an unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers and the federal government to believe that rain follows the plow and that the climate of the region had changed permanently. Waves of European settlers arrived in the plains at the beginning of the 20th century, a return of unusually wet weather seemingly confirmed a previously held opinion that the formerly semiarid area could support large-scale agriculture. At the same time, technological improvements such as mechanized plowing, for example, in the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas, the area of farmland was doubled between 1900 and 1920, then tripled again between 1925 and 1930. The agricultural methods favored by farmers during this period created the conditions for large-scale erosion under certain environmental conditions, when severe drought struck the Great Plains region in the 1930s, it resulted in erosion and loss of topsoil because of farming practices at the time. The drought dried the topsoil and over time it became friable, without the indigenous grasses in place, the high winds that occur on the plains picked up the topsoil and created the massive dust storms that marked the Dust Bowl period. The persistent dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion, the fine soil of the Great Plains was easily eroded and carried east by strong continental winds. On November 11,1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota farmlands in just one of a series of severe dust storms that year. Beginning on May 9,1934, a strong, two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl, the dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited 12 million pounds of dust
20.
Keota, Colorado
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Keota is a mostly abandoned town located on the prairie in the Pawnee National Grasslands in Weld County in the U. S. state of Colorado. Keotas elevation is 4,964 ft. Keota is located approximately 50 miles east of Greeley on County Road 103, Pawnee Buttes, a pair of prominent sandstone escarpments which are significant nesting areas for hawks, falcons, and eagles, is located nearby. Keota was established as a homestead in 1880 by two sisters, Mary and Eva Beardsley and sold to the Lincoln Land and Cattle Co. in 1888, Keota was a station stop on the Old Prairie Dog Express on the Colorado-Wyoming Division of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad. The railroad was abandoned and the trackage removed in 1975, the rail road was mainly used for cattle shipping. Keota lost its status in 1990. There were four different newspapers at four different times from 1908-1975, a post office operated briefly in 1890, was reopened in 1909, and closed in 1974. The school was established in 1888 and closed sometime in 1951, the schoolhouse was torn down in the 1950s. The Dean Bivens family, who maintained the roads, moved out in September 1999. The town of Line Camp in James A. Micheners novel Centennial ″was drawn from Keota. ″ As of 2008, there are remains of the general store, several houses, and foundations on what was the north side of the town along with several foundations. The Keota water tower stands to this day, however it is not in operation. Water was once brought to Keota via rail cars due to its location on Colorados eastern plains
21.
Grover, Colorado
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The Town of Grover is a Statutory Town in Weld County, Colorado, United States. The population was 137 at the United States Census,2010, Grover is located at 40°52′6″N 104°13′34″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 0.5 square miles. As of the census of 2000, there were 153 people,78 households, the population density was 304.7 people per square mile. There were 85 housing units at a density of 169.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 96. 08% White,1. 96% African American,1. 31% Native American,0. 65% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 1. 96% of the population. 52. 6% of all households were made up of individuals and 26. 9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 1.96 and the average family size was 3.15. In the town, the population was out with 26. 1% under the age of 18,1. 3% from 18 to 24,22. 9% from 25 to 44,29. 4% from 45 to 64. The median age was 45 years, for every 100 females there were 86.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.2 males, the median income for a household in the town was $17,679, and the median income for a family was $18,438. Males had an income of $21,875 versus $25,625 for females. The per capita income for the town was $9,342. About 36. 0% of families and 45. 2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 71. 4% of those under the age of eighteen and 20. 0% of those sixty five or over
22.
Briggsdale, Colorado
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Briggsdale is an unincorporated community and U. S. Post Office in Weld County, Colorado, United States, the ZIP Code of the Briggsdale Post Office is 80611. The town of Briggsdale was established in 1909, the town was named for Frank N. Briggs, a farmer and one of the founders. The Briggsdale Post Office opened on August 1,1910, Briggsdale is located at 40°38′05″N 104°19′37″W
23.
Pawnee Buttes
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The Pawnee Buttes are two prominent buttes located within the Pawnee National Grassland in Weld County, of northeastern Colorado. Rising approximately 300 feet above the plains, the buttes are erosional remnants left standing in isolation as the surrounding High Plains surface has gradually worn away. The lower portions of the buttes are composed of relatively soft, the Brule formation is protected by an overlying layer of sandstone and conglomerate sediments called the Arikaree formation, which are more resistant to weathering. The buttes are in the edge of the Colorado Piedmont. To the north, the piedmont is bordered by the Chalk Bluffs, as the rains and snows slowly erode the bluffs, the piedmont grows towards the north. Stream capture expands the piedmont rapidly towards the upslope or westward, the Buttes themselves are remnants of the High Plains surrounded by the piedmont. Another remnant of the plains is to the west where the Chalk Bluffs form the eastern edge. The Buttes are a consolidation of several geological ages, the main mass of the butte is the lower half to two-thirds. It is a layer from the Brule member of the White River Formation. It is from the Oligocene Epoch, below this level and visible only further east than the buttes is the Chardron member of the White River Formation. Above the Brule layer is the Pawnee Creek Formation from the Upper Miocene, the cap of the buttes is the Arikaree Formation, also of the Miocene age. Research in the 1970 suggest that the level of the cap rock is of the Ogallala Formation from the Pliocene. The Pliocene layers exist further to the north in the High Plains region, the cap rock is a harder mixture of sandstone and conglomerate, while the Brule layers are a softer clay. The surrounding area is considered a badlands as North Pawnee Creek cuts numerous channels into the Brule Formation soils, ‘’’Short Grass’’’ prairies surround the buttes. They are dominated by Blue grama and buffalo grass, associated plants include the Thread-leaf sedge, ring muhly, western wheatgrass, and the prickly pear cactus. ‘’’Mixed Prairie’’’ are the lighter and more sandy soils, on the heights, the dominant plants are the Needle and thread grass, western wheatgrass, Junegrass, along with short grass plants. The mixed prairie has the greatest variety of plants, the ‘’’Little Bluestem’’’ is found across the entire grasslands, but it dominates in localized plots. These are in the swales and along north facing slopes where the shade will retain water longer, around the west butte, pockets are along the north and northeast facing slopes where the shade will retin water longer
24.
Geology
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Geology is an earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Geology can also refer generally to the study of the features of any terrestrial planet. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth by providing the evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life. Geology also plays a role in engineering and is a major academic discipline. The majority of data comes from research on solid Earth materials. These typically fall into one of two categories, rock and unconsolidated material, the majority of research in geology is associated with the study of rock, as rock provides the primary record of the majority of the geologic history of the Earth. There are three types of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The rock cycle is an important concept in geology which illustrates the relationships between three types of rock, and magma. When a rock crystallizes from melt, it is an igneous rock, the sedimentary rock can then be subsequently turned into a metamorphic rock due to heat and pressure and is then weathered, eroded, deposited, and lithified, ultimately becoming a sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock may also be re-eroded and redeposited, and metamorphic rock may also undergo additional metamorphism, all three types of rocks may be re-melted, when this happens, a new magma is formed, from which an igneous rock may once again crystallize. Geologists also study unlithified material which typically comes from more recent deposits and these materials are superficial deposits which lie above the bedrock. Because of this, the study of material is often known as Quaternary geology. This includes the study of sediment and soils, including studies in geomorphology, sedimentology and this theory is supported by several types of observations, including seafloor spreading, and the global distribution of mountain terrain and seismicity. This coupling between rigid plates moving on the surface of the Earth and the mantle is called plate tectonics. The development of plate tectonics provided a basis for many observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features could be explained as plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and volcanoes exist, were explained as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart. Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes were explained as convergent boundaries, where one plate subducts under another, transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas Fault system, resulted in widespread powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also provided a mechanism for Alfred Wegeners theory of continental drift and they also provided a driving force for crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology
25.
Birdwatching
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Birdwatching, or birding, is a form of wildlife observation in which the observation of birds is a recreational activity. It can be done with the eye, through a visual enhancement device like binoculars and telescopes, by listening for bird sounds. Birdwatching often involves a significant auditory component, as bird species are more easily detected and identified by ear than by eye. Most birdwatchers pursue this activity for recreational or social reasons, unlike ornithologists, the first recorded use of the term birdwatcher was in 1891, bird was introduced as a verb in 1918. The term birding was also used for the practice of fowling or hunting with firearms as in Shakespeares The Merry Wives of Windsor and her husband goes this morning a-birding. The terms birding and birdwatching are today used by some interchangeably, although some participants prefer birding, in North America, many birders differentiate themselves from birdwatchers, and the term birder is unfamiliar to most lay people. At the most basic level, the distinction is perceived as one of dedication or intensity, generally, self-described birders perceive themselves to be more versed in minutiae like identification, molt, distribution, migration timing, and habitat usage. Indeed, in 1969 a Birding Glossary appeared in Birding magazine which gave the following definitions, the acceptable term used to describe the person who seriously pursues the hobby of birding. A hobby in which individuals enjoy the challenge of bird study, listing, a rather ambiguous term used to describe the person who watches birds for any reason at all, and should not be used to refer to the serious birder. Twitching is a British term used to mean the pursuit of a previously located rare bird, in North America it is more often called chasing, though the British usage is starting to catch on there, especially among younger birders. The term twitcher, sometimes misapplied as a synonym for birder, is reserved for those who travel long distances to see a bird that would then be ticked. The term originated in the 1950s, when it was used for the behaviour of Howard Medhurst. Prior terms for those who chased rarities were pot-hunter, tally-hunter, the main goal of twitching is often to accumulate species on ones lists. Some birders engage in competition to accumulate the longest species list, the act of the pursuit itself is referred to as a twitch or a chase. A rare bird that stays put long enough for people to see it is twitchable or chaseable, twitching is highly developed in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Finland and Sweden. The size of these makes it possible to travel throughout them quickly. The most popular twitches in the UK have drawn large crowds, for example, approximately 2,500 people travelled to Kent, England, to view a golden-winged warbler, twitchers have developed their own vocabulary. For example, a twitcher who fails to see a bird has dipped out, if other twitchers do see the bird
26.
Chernozem
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Chernozem is a black-coloured soil containing a high percentage of humus, and high percentages of phosphoric acids, phosphorus and ammonia. Chernozem is very fertile and produces a high agricultural yield, similar soil types occur in Texas and Hungary. Chernozem layer thickness may vary widely, from several inches up to 60 inches in Ukraine, the terrain can also be found in small quantities elsewhere. It also exists in Northeast China, near Harbin, the only true chernozem in Australia is located around Nimmitabel producing some of the richest soils in the nation. The sale of land has been illegal in Ukraine since 1992. Chernozemic soils are a type in the Canadian system of soil classification
27.
Semi-arid climate
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A semi-arid climate or steppe climate is the climate of a region that receives precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not extremely. There are different kinds of climates, depending on such variables as temperature. Semi-arid climates tend to short or scrubby vegetation, with semi-arid areas usually dominated by either grasses or shrubs. To determine if a location has a climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. If the areas precipitation is less than the threshold but more than half the threshold. Hot semi-arid climates tend to be located in the tropics and subtropics and these climates tend to have hot, sometimes extremely hot, summers and warm to cool winters, with some to minimal precipitation. Hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found around the fringes of subtropical deserts, hot semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Africa, Australia and South Asia. In Australia, a portion of the Outback surrounding the central desert regions lies within the hot semi-arid climate regime. Hot semi-arid climates can also be found in North America, primarily in Mexico, areas of Texas near Mexico, cold semi-arid climates tend to be located in temperate zones or elevated portions in subtropical zones. They are typically found in continental interiors some distance from bodies of water. Cold semi-arid climates usually feature warm and dry summers, though their summers are not quite as hot as those of hot semi-arid climates. Unlike hot semi-arid climates, areas with cold semi-arid climates tend to have cold winters and these areas usually see some snowfall during the winter, though snowfall is much lower than at locations at similar latitudes with more humid climates. These large diurnal temperature variations are seen in hot semi-arid climates. Cold semi-arid climates are most commonly found in Asia and North America, however, they can also be found in Northern Africa, South Africa, Europe, sections of South America and sections of interior southern Australia and New Zealand. As a result of this, some areas can have climates that are classified as hot or cold depending on the isotherm used. One such location is San Diego, California, which has cool summers for the due to prevailing winds off the ocean. Arid Forest Research Institute Continental climate Dust Bowl Goyders Line Pallisers Triangle Köppen climate classification Wave height Ustic
28.
Bouteloua dactyloides
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Bouteloua dactyloides, commonly known as buffalograss or buffalo grass, is a North American prairie grass native to Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It is a shortgrass found mainly on the plains and is co-dominant with blue grama over most of the shortgrass prairie. Buffalo grass in North America is not the species of grass commonly known as buffalo in Australia. It should not be confused with Stenotaphrum secundatum varieties such as Sir Walter or Palmetto, Buffalograss is a warm-season perennial shortgrass. It is drought-, heat-, and cold-resistant, foliage is usually 5–13 cm high, though in the southern Great Plains foliage may reach 30 cm. Plants are occasionally monoecious, sometimes perfect flowers. Flower stalks are 10–20 cm tall, the male inflorescence is a panicle, the female inflorescence consists of short spikelets borne in burlike clusters, usually with two to four spikelets per bur. Buffalograss sends out numerous, branching stolons, occasionally it also produces rhizomes, roots are also numerous and thoroughly occupy the soil. The numerous stolons and roots form a dense sod, Buffalograss roots are finer than those of most plains grasses, being less than 1 mm in diameter. In Australia Bouteloua dactyloides is not called buffalo but referred to as prairie grass, Bouteloua dactyloides was initially placed by Thomas Nuttall in the genus Sesleria. It was later moved to the monotypic genus Buchloe, in 1999, James Travis Columbus moved Buffalograss to Bouteloua, which also contains the grama grasses. Buffalograss is used as a drought-tolerant turfgrass in North America and is grown for forage. Turfgrass cultivars include 609, Prairie, Stampede and Density, while Comanche, settlers used its dense sod to build sod houses. Buffalograss false smut is a disease caused by Porocercospora seminalis. Infection by the fungus prevents normal caryopsis development, resulting in loss of yield and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed
29.
Bouteloua gracilis
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Bouteloua gracilis is a long-lived, warm-season perennial grass, native to North America. It is most commonly found from Alberta, Canada, east to Manitoba and south across the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains, blue grama accounts for most of the net primary productivity in the shortgrass prairie of the central and southern Great Plains. It is a green or greyish, low-growing, drought-tolerant grass with limited maintenance, blue grama grows on a wide array of topographic positions, and in a range of well-drained soil types, from fine to coarse-textured. Blue grama has green to greyish leaves less than 3 millimetres wide and 1 to 10 inches long, the overall height of the plant is 6 to 12 in at maturity. The flowering stems are 7 to 18 inches long, there are typically two comb-like spikes, each with 20 to 90 spikelets, that extend out at a sharp angle from the flowering stem. Each spikelet is 5 to 6 mm long, there is one fertile floret with a lemma 5 to 5.5 mm long, with three short awns at the tip, and one reduced sterile floret about 2 mm long with three awns about 5 mm long. The roots generally grow 12 to 18 inches outwards, and 3 to 6.5 feet deep, blue grama is readily established from seed, but depends more on vegetative reproduction via tillers. Seed production is slow, and depends on moisture and temperature. Seeds dispersed by wind only reach a few meters, farther distances are reached with insects, birds, seedling establishment, survival, and growth are greatest when isolated from neighboring adult plants, which effectively exploit water in the seedlings root zone. Successful establishment requires a modest amount of moisture during the extension. Established plants are grazing-, cold-, and drought-tolerant, though prolonged drought leads to a reduction in root number and they employ an opportunistic water-use strategy, rapidly using water when available, and becoming dormant during less-favorable conditions. In terms of status, blue grama is a late seral to climax species. Recovery following disturbance is slow and depends on the type and extent of the disturbance, blue grama is valued as forage. Blue Grama flowers are used in dried flower arrangements. Blue grama is the grass of Colorado and New Mexico. It is listed as a species in Illinois. Among the Zuni people, the bunches are tied together and the severed end used as a hairbrush. Bunches are also used to strain goats milk, Fire Effects Information System, Bouteloua gracilis - Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory
30.
Butte
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A butte /bjuːt/ is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top, buttes are smaller than mesas, plateaus, and table landforms. The word butte comes from a French word meaning hill, its use is prevalent in the Western United States. Because of their shapes, buttes are frequently landmarks in plains. In differentiating mesas and buttes, geographers use the rule of thumb that a mesa has a top that is wider than its height, the Mitten Buttes of Monument Valley in Arizona are two of the most distinctive and widely recognized buttes. Monument Valley and the Mittens provided backgrounds in scenes from many western-themed films, the Devils Tower in northeastern Wyoming is a laccolithic butte composed of igneous rock rather than sandstone, limestone or other sedimentary rocks. Among the well-known non-flat-topped buttes in the United States are Bear Butte, South Dakota, Black Butte, Oregon, in many cases, buttes have been given other names that do not use the word butte, for example, Courthouse Rock, Nebraska. Also, some large hills that are technically not buttes have names using the word butte, examples of which are Kamiak Butte, Buttes form by weathering and erosion when hard caprock overlies a layer of less resistant rock that is eventually worn away. The harder rock on top of the butte resists erosion, the caprock provides protection for the less resistant rock below from wind abrasion which leaves it standing isolated. As the top is further eroded by abrasion and weathering, the material that falls off adds to the scree or talus slope around the base. On a much smaller scale, the process forms hoodoos. Media related to Buttes at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of butte at Wiktionary Butte
31.
Brown earth
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Brown earth is a type of soil. Brown earths are mostly located between 35° and 55° north of the Equator, the largest expanses cover western and central Europe, large areas of western and trans-Uralian Russia, the east coast of America and eastern Asia. Here, areas of brown earth soil types are particularly in Japan, Korea, China, eastern Australia. Brown earths cover 45% of the land in England and Wales and they are common in lowland areas on permeable parent material. The most common types are deciduous woodland and grassland. Due to the reasonable natural fertility of brown earths, large tracts of woodland have been cut down. They are normally located in regions with a temperate climate. Rainfall totals are moderate, usually below 76 cm per year and they are well-drained fertile soils with a pH of between 5.0 and 6.5. They generally have three horizons, the A, B and C horizon, horizon A is usually a brownish colour, and over 20 cm in depth. It is composed of mull humus and mineral matter and it is biologically active with many soil organisms and plant roots mixing the mull humus with mineral particles. As a result, the boundary between the A and B horizons can be ill defined in unploughed examples and it is lighter in colour than the A horizon, and is often weakly illuviated. Due to limited leaching only the more soluble bases are moved down through the profile, horizon C is made up of the parent material, which is generally permeable and non- or slightly acidic, for example clay loam. Brown Earths are important, because they are permeable and usually easy to work throughout the year and they also support a much wider range of forest trees than can be found on wetter land. They are freely drained soils with well-developed A and B horizons and they often develop over relatively permeable bedrock of some kind, but are also found over unconsolidated parent materials like river gravels. Some soil classifications include well-drained alluvial soils in the brown earths too, typically the Brown Earths have dark brown topsoils with loamy particle size-classes and good structure – especially under grassland. The B horizon lacks the grey colours and mottles characteristic of gley soils, the rich colour is the result of iron compounds, mainly complex oxides which, like rust, have a reddish-brown colour. Some of these soils are, in fact, red, in long-cultivated soils the pH in the topsoil tends to be higher than in the subsoil as a result of the addition of lime over the years. In general, the wetter the climate, the more acidic the soils and this is because rain tends to wash the “alkaline” bases out of the soil
32.
Cretaceous
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The Cretaceous is a geologic period and system that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period 145 million years ago to the beginning of the Paleogene Period 66 Mya. It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era, the Cretaceous Period is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation Kreide. The Cretaceous was a period with a warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists, during this time, new groups of mammals and birds, as well as flowering plants, appeared. The Cretaceous ended with a mass extinction, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the abrupt Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, the name Cretaceous was derived from Latin creta, meaning chalk. The Cretaceous is divided into Early and Late Cretaceous epochs, or Lower and Upper Cretaceous series, in older literature the Cretaceous is sometimes divided into three series, Neocomian, Gallic and Senonian. A subdivision in eleven stages, all originating from European stratigraphy, is now used worldwide, in many parts of the world, alternative local subdivisions are still in use. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds of the Cretaceous are well identified. No great extinction or burst of diversity separates the Cretaceous from the Jurassic and this layer has been dated at 66.043 Ma. A140 Ma age for the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary instead of the usually accepted 145 Ma was proposed in 2014 based on a study of Vaca Muerta Formation in Neuquén Basin. Víctor Ramos, one of the authors of the study proposing the 140 Ma boundary age sees the study as a first step toward formally changing the age in the International Union of Geological Sciences, due to the high sea level there was extensive space for such sedimentation. Because of the young age and great thickness of the system. Chalk is a type characteristic for the Cretaceous. It consists of coccoliths, microscopically small calcite skeletons of coccolithophores, the group is found in England, northern France, the low countries, northern Germany, Denmark and in the subsurface of the southern part of the North Sea. Chalk is not easily consolidated and the Chalk Group still consists of sediments in many places. The group also has other limestones and arenites, among the fossils it contains are sea urchins, belemnites, ammonites and sea reptiles such as Mosasaurus. In southern Europe, the Cretaceous is usually a marine system consisting of competent limestone beds or incompetent marls
33.
Aquifer
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An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures or unconsolidated materials from which groundwater can be extracted using a water well. The study of flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology. Related terms include aquitard, which is a bed of low permeability along an aquifer, and aquiclude, if the impermeable area overlies the aquifer, pressure could cause it to become a confined aquifer. Aquifers may occur at various depths and those closer to the surface are not only more likely to be used for water supply and irrigation, but are also more likely to be topped up by the local rainfall. Many desert areas have limestone hills or mountains within them or close to them that can be exploited as groundwater resources, overexploitation can lead to the exceeding of the practical sustained yield, i. e. more water is taken out than can be replenished. The beach provides a model to help visualize an aquifer, if a hole is dug into the sand, very wet or saturated sand will be located at a shallow depth. This hole is a well, the wet sand represents an aquifer. In 2013 large freshwater aquifers were discovered under continental shelves off Australia, China, North America and they contain an estimated half a million cubic kilometers of “low salinity” water that could be economically processed into potable water. The reserves formed when ocean levels were lower and rainwater made its way into the ground in areas that were not submerged until the ice age ended 20,000 years ago. The volume is estimated to be 100x the amount of extracted from other aquifers since 1900. The above diagram indicates typical flow directions in a view of a simple confined or unconfined aquifer system. The system shows two aquifers with one aquitard between them, surrounded by the bedrock aquiclude, which is in contact with a gaining stream, the water table and unsaturated zone are also illustrated. An aquitard is a zone within the earth that restricts the flow of groundwater from one aquifer to another, an aquitard can sometimes, if completely impermeable, be called an aquiclude or aquifuge. Aquitards are composed of layers of clay or non-porous rock with low hydraulic conductivity. Groundwater can be found at every point in the Earths shallow subsurface to some degree. Saturated means the head of the water is greater than atmospheric pressure. The definition of the table is the surface where the pressure head is equal to atmospheric pressure. Unsaturated conditions occur above the table where the pressure head is negative
34.
Arroyo (creek)
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An arroyo, also called a wash, is a dry creek, stream bed or gulch that temporarily or seasonally fills and flows after sufficient rain. Flash floods are common in arroyos following thunderstorms, in Latin America any small river might be called an arroyo, even if it flows continually all year and is never dry. The Arabic terms rambla or wadi are used in North Africa, arroyos provide a water source to desert animals. The desert dry wash biome is restricted to the arroyos of the southwestern United States, arroyos can be natural fluvial landforms or constructed flood control channels. The term usually applies to a sloped or mountainous terrain in xeric, flash flooding can cause the deep arroyos or deposition of sediment on flooded lands. This can lower the level of the surrounding area, making it unsuitable for agriculture. However a shallow water table lowered in desert arroyo valleys can reduce saline seeping and alkali deposits in the topsoil, research has been conducted in the hydrological modeling relative to arroyos. Natural arroyos are made through the known as arroyo-cutting. This occurs in regions such as New Mexico, where heavy rains can lead to enlargement of rivers cutting into surrounding rock creating ravines which are dry under normal weather conditions. It is argued, however, whether these excessively stormy periods are the cause of arroyo-cutting as other factors such as long-term climate changes must also be taken into account. Arroyo cutting which occurred in the 1900s in the southwestern United States caused serious farming issues such as a water table. In agriculture areas in climates needing irrigation, farmers relied on small constructed arroyos, acequias, zanjas or aqueduct channels. An example of larger constructed arroyos is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, there are several miles of open-air concrete lined drainage channels that drain an area into the main North Diversion Channel, a tributary of the Rio Grande joining upstream of Albuquerque. After the San Juan Project Water Treatment Plant here, the Rio Grandes flow exceeding that needed for the silvery minnow habitat is available for municipal water supply diversion. Signs are posted at the constructed arroyos warning to keep out due to danger of flash flooding, the Arroyo Seco and Los Angeles River are more famous examples in Southern California of former natural arroyo seasonal watercourses that became constructed open drainage system arroyos
35.
Windmill
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A windmill is a mill that converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Centuries ago, windmills usually were used to mill grain, pump water, thus they often were gristmills, windpumps, or both. The majority of modern windmills take the form of wind turbines used to generate electricity, the windwheel of the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria in the first century is the earliest known instance of using a wind-driven wheel to power a machine. Another early example of a wheel was the prayer wheel. It has been claimed that the Babylonian emperor Hammurabi planned to use wind power for his ambitious project in the seventeenth century BCE. The first practical windmills had sails that rotated in a horizontal plane, according to Ahmad Y. al-Hassan, these panemone windmills were invented in eastern Persia as recorded by the Persian geographer Estakhri in the ninth century. The authenticity of an anecdote of a windmill involving the second caliph Umar is questioned on the grounds that it appears in a tenth-century document. Made of six to 12 sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind grain or draw up water, Windmills were in widespread use across the Middle East and Central Asia, and later spread to China and India from there. A similar type of windmill with rectangular blades, used for irrigation, can also be found in thirteenth-century China. Horizontal windmills were built, in numbers, in Europe during the 18th and nineteenth centuries, for example Fowlers Mill at Battersea in London. Due to a lack of evidence, debate occurs among historians as to whether or not Middle Eastern horizontal windmills triggered the development of European windmills. In northwestern Europe, the horizontal-axis or vertical windmill is believed to date from the last quarter of the century in the triangle of northern France, eastern England. The earliest certain reference to a windmill in Europe dates from 1185, a number of earlier, but less certainly dated, twelfth-century European sources referring to windmills have also been found. These earliest mills were used to grind cereals, the evidence at present is that the earliest type of European windmill was the post mill, so named because of the large upright post on which the mills main structure is balanced. The body contains all the milling machinery, the first post mills were of the sunken type, where the post was buried in an earth mound to support it. Later, a wooden support was developed called the trestle and this was often covered over or surrounded by a roundhouse to protect the trestle from the weather and to provide storage space. This type of windmill was the most common in Europe until the nineteenth century, in a hollow-post mill, the post on which the body is mounted is hollowed out, to accommodate the drive shaft. This makes it possible to drive machinery below or outside the body still being able to rotate the body into the wind
36.
Quaternary
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Quaternary is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.588 ±0.005 million years ago to the present, the Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs, the Pleistocene and the Holocene. The informal term Late Quaternary refers to the past 0. 5–1.0 million years, the Quaternary Period is typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets driven by Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that occurred. The term Quaternary was proposed by Giovanni Arduino in 1759 for alluvial deposits in the Po River valley in northern Italy and it was introduced by Jules Desnoyers in 1829 for sediments of Frances Seine Basin that seemed clearly to be younger than Tertiary Period rocks. The Quaternary Period follows the Neogene Period and extends to the present, the Quaternary covers the time span of glaciations classified as the Pleistocene, and includes the present interglacial time-period, the Holocene. This places the start of the Quaternary at the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation approximately 2.6 million years ago, Quaternary stratigraphers usually worked with regional subdivisions. From the 1970s, the International Commission on Stratigraphy tried to make a single geologic time scale based on GSSPs, the Quaternary subdivisions were defined based on biostratigraphy instead of paleoclimate. This led to the problem that the base of the Pleistocene was at 1.805 Mya. The ICS then proposed to use of the name Quaternary altogether. The Anthropocene has been proposed as an epoch as a mark of the anthropogenic impact on the global environment starting with the Industrial Revolution. The Anthropocene is not officially designated by the ICS, however, the 2.6 million years of the Quaternary represents the time during which recognizable humans existed. Over this short period, there has been relatively little change in the distribution of the continents due to plate tectonics. The Quaternary geological record is preserved in detail than that for earlier periods. The climate was one of periodic glaciations with continental glaciers moving as far from the poles as 40 degrees latitude, there was a major extinction of large mammals in Northern areas at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. Many forms such as saber-toothed cats, mammoths, mastodons, glyptodonts, others, including horses, camels and American cheetahs became extinct in North America. Glaciation took place repeatedly during the Quaternary Ice Age – a term coined by Schimper in 1839 that began with the start of the Quaternary about 2.58 Mya and continues to the present-day. In 1821, a Swiss engineer, Ignaz Venetz, presented an article in which he suggested the presence of traces of the passage of a glacier at a distance from the Alps. This idea was initially disputed by another Swiss scientist, Louis Agassiz, a year later, Agassiz raised the hypothesis of a great glacial period that would have had long-reaching general effects
37.
Shortgrass prairie
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The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America. The prairie includes lands to the west as far as the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and extends east as far as Nebraska. The prairie stretches through parts of Alberta, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas, and passes south through the plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas. The prairie was formerly maintained by grazing pressure of American bison, the two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama and buffalograss, the two less dominant grasses in the prairie are greasegrass and sideoats grama. Due to its climate, the shortgrass prairie receives on average less precipitation than that of the tall. The shortgrass prairie has a human history. The Kiowa, Comanche, and Arapahoe peoples occupied the land, hunting bison, seasonally, these tribes would stage hunts in the adjacent mountains such as the Rocky Mountains. To manage the prairie these tribes and their predecessors likely used fire and they would create fuel breaks, a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a brushfire or wildfire. A firebreak may occur naturally in areas without vegetation or other fuel, such as a river and these fuel breaks would also entice large herbivores to patches of fresh new growth. European explorers, trappers, and fur traders began to settle the shortgrass prairie and they developed an extractive economy that led to the later growth and industrialization of the prairie. In the mid- and late 19th century the railroads expanded transportation channels, helping to increase settlement, predominantly in rural, while more people began to settle in the prairie, large-scale cattle and sheep ranching increased as well. This later led to the development of gold, silver, in the 1920s, El Niño played a big role in the success of crop growing in the short grass plains. El Niño caused more precipitation throughout the prairie, promoting plant growth, the success encouraged farmers to buy more efficient farming equipment. With the new equipment, farmers turned up the native land, by the time the 1930s came around, it was too late to protect the soil with grass. The unprotected soil contributed to the Dust Bowl by being blown around, the Food Security Act of 1985 allowed for lower commodity prices and income supports. This Act also laid the foundation for the dairy herd buyout program, the Act made changes to several other USDA programs. Today much of the prairie is grazed by domestic livestock. However, energy and mining exploration have increased, the shortgrass prairie is a long thin stretch of territory that starts at the top of the country and makes its way to the bottom
38.
Pinus flexilis
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Pinus flexilis, the limber pine, is a species of pine tree-the family Pinaceae that occurs in the mountains of the Western United States, Mexico, and Canada. It is also called Rocky Mountain white pine, a limber pine in Eagle Cap Wilderness, Oregon has been documented as over 2000 years old, and another one was confirmed at 1140 years old. Another candidate for the oldest limber pine was identified in 2006 near the Alta Ski Area in Utah, called Twister, continuing south the species is found in the San Jacinto Mountains, Santa Rosa Mountains, and Hot Springs Mountain of the Peninsular Ranges. There are small populations in eastern Washington and Oregon, in western North Dakota and Nebraska. It is found at a range of altitudes depending on the latitude. P. flexilis is typically a pine, often marking the tree line either on its own, or with whitebark pine, either of the bristlecone pines. In favourable conditions, it makes a tree to 20 meters, however, on exposed treeline sites, mature trees are much smaller, reaching heights of only 5–10 meters. P. flexilis, is an important source of food for species, including red squirrels. American black bears may raid squirrel caches for limber pine nuts, squirrels, Northern flickers, and mountain bluebirds often nest in the trees. P. flexilis is a member of the white group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, and like all members of that group. This distinguishes it from the pine, with two needles per fascicle, and the bristlecone pines, which share five needles per fascicle but have a semi-persistent sheath. Distinguishing limber pine from the related whitebark pine, also a pine, is very much more difficult. In limber pine, the cones are 6–12 centimeters long where the overlap, green when immature, and open to release the seeds. In whitebark pine, the cones are 4–7 centimeters long, dark purple when immature, and do not open on drying, a useful clue is that whitebark pines almost never have intact old cones lying under them, whereas limber pines usually do. In the absence of cones, limber pine can also be hard to tell from Western white pine where they together in the northern Rockies. The most useful clue here is that limber pine needles are entire, limber pine needles are also usually shorter, 4–7 centimeters long, while western white pine needles are 5–10 centimeters, though the ranges overlap. Limber pine is susceptible to white pine blister rust, caused by Cronartium ribicola, limber pine mortality is high in many areas throughout its range, except Arizona, where it has not yet been found. However, there is hope of controlling the blister rust in existing trees
39.
Pronghorn
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The pronghorn is a species of artiodactyl mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. It is the surviving member of the family Antilocapridae. During the Pleistocene period, about 12 antilocaprid species existed in North America, three other genera existed when humans entered North America but are now extinct. As a member of the superfamily Giraffoidea, the pronghorns closest living relatives are the giraffes, the Giraffoidea are in turn members of the infraorder Pecora, making pronghorns more distant relatives of the Cervidae and Bovidae, among others. The scientific name of the pronghorn is Antilocapra americana, the pronghorn is the sole extant member of the family Antilocapridae. This species was first described by American ornithologist George Ord in 1815, the expedition, which aimed to unravel water routes in the continent for commercial purposes, led to the discovery or formal recognition of a variety of flora and fauna of North America. Following the discovery of a few subspecies of the grouse, Lewis and Clark came across the pronghorn near the mouth of the Niobrara River. Clark was the first to kill a pronghorn, and described his experience as follows, Lewis and Clark made several other observations on the behavior of the pronghorn and how the local tribes hunted them. They described the animal, which referred to as the Antelope or the Goat, as follows. Shy and timorous they generally only on the ridges, which command a view of all the approaches of an enemy. When they first see the hunters they run with great velocity, the Indians near the Rocky Mountains hunt these animals on horseback, and shoot them with arrows. The Mandans mode of hunting them is to form a large, strong pen or fold, the animals are surrounded by the hunters, and gently driven towards this pen, in which they imperceptibly find themselves enclosed, and are then at the mercy of the hunters. Pronghorns have distinct white fur on their rumps, sides, breasts, bellies, adult males are 1. 3–1.5 m long from nose to tail, stand 81–104 cm high at the shoulder, and weigh 40–65 kg. The females are the height as males, but weigh 34–48 kg. The feet have two hooves, with no dewclaws and their body temperature is 38 °C. The orbits are prominent and set high on the skull, with never an anteorbital pit, as in the Giraffidae, skin covers the bony cores, but in the pronghorn, it develops into a keratinous sheath which is shed and regrown on an annual basis. Unlike the horns of the family Bovidae, the sheaths of the pronghorn are branched. Males have a horn sheath about 12. 5–43 cm long with a prong, females have smaller horns that range from 2. 5–15.2 cm and sometimes barely visible, they are straight and very rarely pronged
40.
Deer
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Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the deer and the chital, and the Capreolinae, including the elk, reindeer, the Western roe deer. Female reindeer, and male deer of all species, grow, in this they differ from permanently horned antelope, which are in the same order, Artiodactyla. The musk deer of Asia and water chevrotain of tropical African and Asian forests are not usually regarded as true deer and form their own families, Moschidae and Tragulidae, respectively. Deer appear in art from Palaeolithic cave paintings onwards, and they have played a role in mythology, religion and their economic importance includes the use of their meat as venison, their skins as soft, strong buckskin, and their antlers as handles for knives. Deer hunting has been a sport since at least the Middle Ages. Deer live in a variety of biomes, ranging from tundra to the tropical rainforest, while often associated with forests, many deer are ecotone species that live in transitional areas between forests and thickets and prairie and savanna. The majority of deer species inhabit temperate mixed deciduous forest, mountain mixed coniferous forest, tropical seasonal/dry forest. Clearing open areas within forests to some extent may actually benefit deer populations by exposing the understory and allowing the types of grasses, weeds, additionally, access to adjacent croplands may also benefit deer. However, adequate forest or brush cover must still be provided for populations to grow, however, fallow deer have been introduced to South Africa. There are also species of deer that are highly specialized, and live almost exclusively in mountains, grasslands, swamps. Some deer have a distribution in both North America and Eurasia. Examples include the caribou that live in Arctic tundra and taiga and moose that inhabit taiga, huemul deer of South Americas Andes fill the ecological niches of the ibex and wild goat, with the fawns behaving more like goat kids. Mountain slope habitats vary from moist coniferous/mixed forested habitats to dry forests with alpine meadows higher up. The foothills and river valleys between the mountain provide a mosaic of cropland and deciduous parklands. The rare woodland caribou have the most restricted range living at altitudes in the subalpine meadows. Elk and mule deer both migrate between the alpine meadows and lower coniferous forests and tend to be most common in this region, elk also inhabit river valley bottomlands, which they share with White-tailed deer. They also live in the aspen parklands north of Calgary and Edmonton, the adjacent Great Plains grassland habitats are left to herds of elk, American bison, and pronghorn antelope
41.
Bison
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Bison are large, even-toed ungulates in the genus Bison within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four species are recognized. Of the four species, three were North American endemics, Bison antiquus, B. latifrons, and B. occidentalis. The fourth, B. priscus, ranged across steppe environments from Western Europe, through Central Asia, East Asia including Japan, of the two surviving species, the American bison, B. bison, found only in North America, is the more numerous. Although sometimes referred to historically as a buffalo, it is distantly related to the true buffalo. The North American species is composed of two subspecies, the Plains bison, B. b. bison, and the Wood bison, B. b. athabascae, which is the namesake of Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. A third subspecies, the Eastern Woodland Bison is no longer considered a valid taxon, references to Woods Bison or Wood Bison from the eastern United States confusingly refer to this subspecies, not B. b. athabascae, which was not found in the region. The European bison B. bonasus, or wisent, is found in Europe, while all bison species are classified in their own genus, they are sometimes bred with domestic cattle and produce fertile offspring called beefalo or zubron. The American bison and the European bison are the largest surviving terrestrial animals in North America, Bison are good swimmers and can cross rivers over half a mile wide. They are nomadic grazers and travel in herds, the bulls leave the herds of females at two or three years of age, and join a male herd, which are generally smaller than female herds. Towards the end of the summer, for the reproductive season, American bison are known for living in the Great Plains, but formerly had a much larger range including much of the eastern United States and parts of Mexico. The American Plains bison is no longer listed as endangered, genetically pure B. b. bison currently number only ~20,000, separated into fragmented herds - all of which require active conservation measures. Although superficially similar, physical and behavioural differences exist between the American and European bison, the American species has 15 ribs, while the European bison has 14. The American bison has four lumbar vertebrae, while the European has five, adult American bison are less slim in build and have shorter legs. American bison tend to more, and browse less than their European relatives. Their anatomies reflect this difference, the American bisons head hangs lower than the Europeans. The body of the American bison is hairier, though its tail has less hair than that of the European bison. American bison are more easily tamed than their European cousins, the bovine tribe split about 5 to 10 million years ago into the buffalos and a group leading to bison and taurine cattle
42.
Prairie dog
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Prairie dogs are herbivorous burrowing rodents native to the grasslands of North America. The five species are, black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnisons, Utah and they are a type of ground squirrel, found in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In the United States, they range primarily to the west of the Mississippi River, despite the name, they are not canines. Prairie dogs are named for their habitat and warning call, which similar to a dogs bark. The name was in use at least as early as 1774, the 1804 journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition note that in September 1804, they discovered a Village of an animal the French Call the Prairie Dog. Its genus, Cynomys, derives from the Greek for dog mouse, the black-tailed prairie dog was first described by Lewis and Clark in 1804. Lewis described it in detail in 1806, calling it the barking squirrel.5 and 1.5 kilograms. Sexual dimorphism in body mass in the prairie dog varies 105 to 136% between the sexes, among the species, black-tailed prairie dogs tend to be the least sexually dimorphic, and white-tailed prairie dogs tend to be the most sexually dimorphic. Prairie dogs are herbivorous, though they eat some insects. They feed primarily on grasses and small seeds, in the fall, they eat broadleaf forbs. In the winter, lactating and pregnant females supplement their diets with snow for extra water and they also will eat roots, seeds, fruit, and buds. Grasses of various species are eaten, white-tailed prairie dogs have been observed to kill ground squirrels, a competing herbivore. Prairie dogs live mainly at altitudes ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 ft above sea level, the areas where they live can get as warm as 38 °C in the summer and as cold as −37 °C in the winter. As prairie dogs live in areas prone to environmental threats, including hailstorms, blizzards, burrows help prairie dogs control their body temperature as they are 5–10 °C during the winter and 15–25 °C in the summer. Prairie dog burrows are 5–10 m long and 2–3 m below the ground, the entrance holes are generally 10–30 cm in diameter. Prairie dog burrows can have up to six entrances, sometimes the entrances are simply flat holes in the ground, while at other times they are surrounded by mounds of soil either left as piles or hard packed. Some mounds, known as dome craters, can be as high as 0. 2–0.3 m high, other mounds, known as rim craters, can be as high as 1 m. Dome craters and rim craters serve as observation posts used by the animals to watch for predators and they also protect the burrows from flooding
43.
Gray wolf
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The gray wolf or grey wolf, also known as the timber wolf or western wolf, is a canine native to the wilderness and remote areas of Eurasia and North America. It is the largest extant member of its family, with males averaging 43–45 kg, like the red wolf, it is distinguished from other Canis species by its larger size and less pointed features, particularly on the ears and muzzle. Its winter fur is long and bushy, and predominantly a mottled gray in color, although pure white, red. As of 2005,37 subspecies of C. lupus are recognised by MSW3 and it is nonetheless closely related enough to smaller Canis species, such as the eastern wolf, coyote, and golden jackal to produce fertile hybrids. It is an animal, travelling in nuclear families consisting of a mated pair. The gray wolf is typically an apex predator throughout its range, with only humans and it feeds primarily on large ungulates, though it also eats smaller animals, livestock, carrion, and garbage. The gray wolf is one of the worlds best known and well researched animals, although the fear of wolves is pervasive in many human societies, the majority of recorded attacks on people have been attributed to animals suffering from rabies. The English wolf stems from the Old English wulf, which is thought to be derived from the Proto-Germanic *wulfaz. The Latin lupus is a Sabine loanword, both derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *wlqwos/*lukwos. The species Canis lupus was first recorded by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758, the thirty-seven subspecies of Canis lupus are listed under the designated common name of wolf in Mammal Species of the World third edition that was published in 2005. The nominate subspecies is the Eurasian wolf, also known as the common wolf, the subspecies includes the domestic dog, dingo, eastern wolf and red wolf, but lists C. l. italicus and C. l. communis as synonyms of C. l. lupus. However, the classification of several as either species or subspecies has recently been challenged, ecological factors including habitat type, climate, prey specialization and predatory competition will greatly influence the wolfs genetic population structure and cranio-dental plasticity. The domestic dog is the most widely abundant large carnivore and a descendant from one of those now-extinct wolf populations, in 2013, a genetic study found that the wolf population in Europe was divided along a north-south axis and formed five major clusters. Three clusters were identified occupying southern and central Europe in Italy, the Carpathians, another two clusters were identified occupying north-central Europe and the Ukrainian steppe. The Italian wolf consisted of a population with low genetic diversity. Wolves from Croatia, Bulgaria, and Greece formed the Dinaric-Balkans cluster, the wolves from the Carpathians were more similar to the wolves from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe than they were to wolves from north-central Europe. These clusters may have been the result of expansion from glacial refugia, an adaptation to environments, and landscape fragmentation. These six wolf ecotypes were named West Forest, Boreal Forest, Arctic, High Arctic, Baffin, the studies found that precipitation and mean diurnal temperature range were the most influential variables
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