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Fossil Ridge Wilderness
The Fossil Ridge Wilderness is a U.S. Wilderness Area located approximately northeast of Gunnison, Colorado in the Gunnison National Forest. The wilderness includes Fossil Ridge, a high, exposed ridge of Paleozoic carbonates that contain epeiric sea fossils. Elevations in the wilderness range from at Summerville Creek to at the summit of Henry Mountain. Elk, deer, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspec ... can be found in the wilderness. References External links * Wilderness areas of Colorado Protected areas established in 1993 Protected areas of Gunnison County, Colorado Gunnison National Forest 1993 establishments in Colorado {{Colorado-protected-area-stub ...
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Gunnison County, Colorado
Gunnison County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,918. The county seat is Gunnison. The county was named for John W. Gunnison, a United States Army officer and captain in the Army Topographical Engineers, who surveyed for the transcontinental railroad in 1853. History Archeological studies have dated the Ute people's appearance in the Uncompahgre region of Colorado as early as 1150 A.D. Possibilities exist that they are descendants of an earlier people living in the area as far back as 1500 B.C. They were a nomadic people moving about the Western Slope of Colorado in the various parts of the year. In the early to mid-1600s the Spaniards of New Mexico introduced the horse which changed their patterns of hunting taking them across the divide to the eastern slopes and into conflict with the Plains Indians which soon became their bitter enemies. The first recorded expedition of Western Colorado wilderness was led by ...
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Fossils
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the ''fossil record''. Paleontology is the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are usually considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years old to 4.1 billion years old. Early edition, published online before print. The observation in the 19th century that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led to the recognition of a geological timescale and the relative ages of different fossils. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed scientists to quantitatively measure the absolute ...
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Protected Areas Established In 1993
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although the mechanisms for providing protection vary widely, the basic meaning of the term remains the same. This is illustrated by an explanation found in a manual on electrical wiring: Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage servin ...
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Wilderness Areas Of Colorado
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally referred to terrestrial environments, though growing attention is being placed on marine wilderness. Recent maps of wilderness suggest it covers roughly one quarter of Earth's terrestrial surface, but is being rapidly degraded by human activity. Even less wilderness remains in the ocean, with only 13.2% free from intense human activity. Some governments establish protection for wilderness areas by law to not only preserve what already exists, but also to promote and advance a natural expression and development. These can be set up in preserves, conservation preserves, national forests, national parks and even in urban areas along rivers, gulches or otherwise undeveloped areas. Often these areas are considered important for the survival of c ...
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Bighorn Sheep
The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspecies of ''Ovis canadensis'', one of which is endangered: ''O. c. sierrae''. Sheep originally crossed to North America over the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia; the population in North America peaked in the millions, and the bighorn sheep entered into the mythology of Native Americans. By 1900, the population had crashed to several thousand, due to diseases introduced through European livestock and overhunting. Taxonomy and genetics ''Ovis canadensis'' is one of two species of mountain sheep in North America; the other species being ''O. dalli'', the Dall sheep. Wild sheep crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia into Alaska during the Pleistocene (about 750,000 years ago) and subsequently spread through western North America as far s ...
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Mountain Goats
The mountain goat (''Oreamnos americanus''), also known as the Rocky Mountain goat, is a hoofed mammal endemic to mountainous areas of western North America. A subalpine to alpine species, it is a sure-footed climber commonly seen on cliffs and ice. Despite its vernacular name and both genera being in the same subfamily (Caprinae), the mountain goat is not a member of ''Capra'', the genus that includes all other goats, such as the wild goat (''Capra aegagrus''), from which the domestic goat is derived. Instead, it is more closely allied with the takins (''Budorcas'') and chamois (''Rupicapra''). Classification and evolution The mountain goat is an even-toed ungulate of the order Artiodactyla and the family Bovidae (along with antelopes, gazelles, and cattle). It belongs to the subfamily Caprinae, along with true goats, wild sheep, the chamois, the muskox and other species. The takins of the Himalayan region, while not a sister lineage of the mountain goat, are nonetheless ve ...
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Deer
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer (caribou), white-tailed deer, the roe deer, and the moose. Male deer of all species (except the water deer), as well as female reindeer, grow and shed new antlers each year. In this they differ from permanently horned antelope, which are part of a different family (Bovidae) within the same order of even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla). The musk deer (Moschidae) of Asia and chevrotains (Tragulidae) of tropical African and Asian forests are separate families that are also in the ruminant clade Ruminantia; they are not especially closely related to Cervidae. Deer appear in art from Paleolithic cave paintings onwards, and they have played a role in mythology, religion, and literature throughout history, as well as in heraldry, such as ...
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Henry Mountain
Henry Mountain is a high and prominent mountain summit in the southern Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The thirteener is located in the Fossil Ridge Wilderness of Gunnison National Forest, northwest ( bearing 313°) of the Town of Pitkin in Gunnison County, Colorado, United States. Mountain See also *List of mountain peaks of North America **List of mountain peaks of the United States ***List of mountain peaks of Colorado This is a list of major mountain peaks in the U.S. State of Colorado. This article comprises three sortable tables of major mountain peaksThis article defines a significant summit as a summit with at least of topographic prominence, and a m ... References External links * Mountains of Colorado Mountains of Gunnison County, Colorado Gunnison National Forest North American 4000 m summits {{Colorado-geo-stub ...
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Epeiric Sea
An inland sea (also known as an epeiric sea or an epicontinental sea) is a continental body of water which is very large and is either completely surrounded by dry land or connected to an ocean by a river, strait, or "arm of the sea". An inland sea will generally have higher salinity than a freshwater lake, but usually lower salinity than the open ocean. Definition What constitutes an "inland sea" is complex and somewhat necessarily vague. The United States Hydrographic Office defined it as "a body of water nearly or completely surrounded by land, especially if very large or composed of salt water". Geologic engineers Heinrich Ries and Thomas L. Watson say an inland sea is merely a very large lake. Rydén, Migula, and Andersson and Deborah Sandler of the Environmental Law Institute add that an inland sea is "more or less" cut off from the ocean. It may be semi-enclosed, or connected to the ocean by a strait or "arm of the sea". An inland sea is distinguishable from a bay in that ...
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Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses 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 the eighth most extensive and 21st most populous U.S. state. The 2020 United States census enumerated the population of Colorado at 5,773,714, an increase of 14.80% since the 2010 United States census. The region has been inhabited by Native Americans and their ancestors for at least 13,500 years and possibly much longer. The eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains was a major migration route for early peoples who spread throughout the Americas. "''Colorado''" is the Spanish adjective meaning "ruddy", the color of the Fountain Formation outcroppings found up and down the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28, 1861, and on August 1, 1876, U.S. President Ulyss ...
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Carbonate Rocks
Carbonate rocks are a class of sedimentary rocks composed primarily of carbonate minerals. The two major types are limestone, which is composed of calcite or aragonite (different crystal forms of CaCO3), and dolomite rock (also known as dolostone), which is composed of mineral dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2). Calcite can be either dissolved by groundwater or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits an unusual characteristic called retrograde solubility in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. When conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together or it can fill fractures. Karst topography and caves develop in carbonate rocks because of their solubility in dilute acidic groundwater. Cooling groundwater or mixing of different groundwaters will also create conditions suitable for cave f ...
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Paleozoic
The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ''zōḗ'' (), "life", meaning "ancient life" ). It is the longest of the Phanerozoic eras, lasting from , and is subdivided into six geologic periods (from oldest to youngest): # Cambrian # Ordovician # Silurian # Devonian # Carboniferous # Permian The Paleozoic comes after the Neoproterozoic Era of the Proterozoic Eon and is followed by the Mesozoic Era. The Paleozoic was a time of dramatic geological, climatic, and evolutionary change. The Cambrian witnessed the most rapid and widespread diversification of life in Earth's history, known as the Cambrian explosion, in which most modern phyla first appeared. Arthropods, molluscs, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and synapsids all evolved during the Paleozoic. Life began in the ocean ...
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