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Research about Denver, Colorado

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Denver, Colorado.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Quantity and quality of urban runoff from three localities in the Denver Metropolitan area, Colorado

Considerable variation in constituent concentrations was shown in urban runoff data for 1975-77 from three metropolitan Denver drainage basins. Constituent concentrations, greatest during initial rainfall runoff, generally peaked midday of snowmelt runoff, corresponding with maximum melting and runoff. Instantaneous loads of constituents were largely a function of discharge. Days since last street sweeping or antecedent precipitation had no apparent effect; snowmelt-runoff loads apparently increased with number of days snow had been on the ground. Urban storm runoff may significantly contribute total ammonia nitrogen, total nonfiltrable residue, total copper, total iron, total lead, and total zinc; and snowmelt runoff may significantly contribute sodium and chloride, to local receiving waters. Data from two basins were used for calibration and verification of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Storm Water Management Model II for rainfall-runoff modeling of flow and total nitrogen. The model assumption that land-surface loads of total nitrogen are directly proportional to number of days prior to storm during which accumulated rainfall was less than 1.0 inch was not substantiated. (Woodard-USGS)

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Hydrologic data for urban storm runoff from three localities in the Denver metropolitan area, Colorado

Urban storm-runoff data, collected from 1975 to 1977, on three catchment areas in the Denver, Colo., metropolitan area are presented. The catchment are predominantly a single-family residential catchment area in Littleton, a multifamily residential and commercial catchment area in Lakewood, and a high-density residential and commercial catchment area in Denver. Precipitation, rainfall-runoff, snowmelt-runoff, water-quality (common constituents, nutrients, biochemical oxygen demand, coliform bacteria, and solids, trace elements, and pesticides), and catchment-area data are necessary to use the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 's Storm Water Management Model II. The urban storm-runoff data may be used by planning, water-management, and environmental-protection agencies to assess the impact of urban storm runoff on the hydrologic system. (Woodard-USGS)

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Map showing outstanding natural and historic landmarks in the greater Denver area, Front Range Urban Corridor, Colorado

The preservation and protection of landmarks of outstanding natural and historical significance has become a matter of increasing public concern as man's ability to alter the landscape has increased. Congress expressed its concern in 1969 in its passage of the National Environmental Policy Act. The purpose of this report is to identify and inventory such landmarks. Appropriate consideration in land-use planning and development can then follow.

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Lakes in the greater Denver area, Front Range urban corridor, Colorado

The many lakes in Colorado's semiarid Front Range Urban Corridor have an especially high value. In the past they were used primarily to store water for irrigation and domestic uses. Some were used for recreation. Today, rapid suburban development in the Front Range Urban Corridor is accompanied by a shift of the principal use of many lakes to recreation and to centers of real estate developments. These same lakes are threatened with a general deterioration of chemical and biological quality caused by heavy use and development of the surrounding area. The purpose of this report is to present the results of an inventory of the lakes in the central one-third of the Colorado Front Range Urban Corridor. This inventory provides information that might be helpful in planning the best and most beneficial use of lakes in an area of rapid population growth. The report includes data on lake size and water quality. Size data are included on most of the lakes of 2 hectares (20,000 m 2 , or about 5 acres) or greater, and water-quality data are provided on most lakes larger than 10 hectares (about 25 acres). Bodies of water resulting form excavation of gravel (borrow pits) were generally not included in the inventory.

Colorado

Map showing flood-prone areas, greater Denver area, Front Range Urban Corridor, Colorado

The rapid growth of population in the Front Range Urban Corridor of Colorado is causing intense competition for available land resources. One form of competition posing serious problems in indiscriminate development on flood plains along creeks and rivers. Flood plains are natural features of the landscape developed by streams in carry water in excess of channel capacity. Although not used as often by the stream, flood plains are as much a part of the stream system as is the channel. Whenever man competes with this natural function of the flood plain he must inevitably pay the price through property damage and varying degrees of human suffering Flood damages in the United States have been estimated to average about \$1 billion annually (American Public Works Association, 1966.) This tremendous waste of national resources is borne not only by those citizens in direct contact with floods but also to a lesser degree by all citizens through increased cost of public services. Thus, floods are of concern to the entire community, and solutions to existing or potential problems should be a community effort.

Colorado

Land-use classification of the greater Denver area, Front Range Urban Corridor, Colorado

The Greater Denver area, in the Front Range Urban Corridor of Colorado, is an area of rapid population growth and expanding land development. At present no overall land-use policy exists for this area, although man individuals and groups are concerned about environmental, economic, and social stresses caused by population pressures. A well-structured land-use policy for the entire Front Range Urban Corridor, in which compatible land uses are taken into account, could lead to overall improvements in land values. A land classification map is the first step toward implementing such a policy.

Colorado

Preliminary map of landslide deposits, Denver 1° by 2° Quadrangle, Colorado

Areas inferred to be underlain by landslide deposits resulting from landsliding, avalanching, block gliding, debris sliding or flowing, earthflows, mudflows, rocksliding, rockfalls, rotational slides, slab or flake sliding, slumping, talus accumulation, and translational sliding. Rock glacier deposits, colluvium, and solifluction deposits are included in some areas. Some till is mapped with landslide deposits because distinguishing these two deposits from one another is difficult: Furthermore, in some areas till has failed by landsliding and other types of mass movements. Movement within the deposits varies from none to rapid; rates of movement may also be variable in any given landslide within the same year. Ages of deposits' range from early Pleistocene to Holocene.

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Map showing potential sources of gravel and crushed-rock aggregate in the greater Denver area, Front Range Urban Corridor, Colorado

Gravel and (or) crushed-rock aggregates are essential commodities for urban development, but supplies in many places are exhausted or otherwise eliminated by urban growth. Gravel resources may be exhausted by exploitation, covered by urban spread, or eliminated from production by zoning. this conflict between a growing need and a progressively reduced supply can be forestalled by informed land-use planning. Fundamental to intelligent decisions on land use is knowledge of the physical character, distribution, and quantity of the gravel resources of an area, and of the alternative resource of rock suitable for crushing. This map has been prepared to supply data basic to land-use planning in the Front Range Urban Corridor.

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Earthquakes induced by fluid injection and explosion

Earthquakes generated by fluid injection near Denver, Colorado, are compared with earthquakes triggered by nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site. Spatial distributions of the earthquakes in both cases are compatible with the hypothesis that variation of fluid pressure in preexisting fractures controls the time distribution of the seismic events in an “aftershock” sequence. We suggest that the fluid pressure changes may also control the distribution in time and space of natural aftershock sequences and of earthquakes that have been reported near large reservoirs.

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Seismic-reflection records from a survey at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado

During July 1966, after competitive bidding, a contract was awarded by the U.S. Geological Survey to GeoData Corporation and Geo Prospectors, Inc., both of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for 18 miles of continuous seismic-reflection profiling in the vicinity of a deep injection disposal well (IDW) at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. The purpose of this survey was to determine if structure exists in the 12,000-ft sedimentary section or in the Precambrian basement that might be related to the series of earthquakes that occurred in the area starting in the spring of 1962. A paper on the seismic-reflection profiling by Ben R. Rummerfield, A. Peter Olson, and D. B. Hoover (1968) reported the major conclusions of the survey.

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Activities and services of the U.S. Geological Survey, Denver area, Colorado

This booklet is a summary of the activities and services of the United States Geological Survey, written for people who have visited or plan to visit one or more of its offices in the Denver area as well as to provide general information about the Geological Survey and its work. Sources of additional information are listed on pages 42-43.

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The Denver earthquakes

Disposal of waste fluids by injection into a deep well has triggered earthquakes near Denver, Colorado.

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Seismic survey in the region of recent earthquake activity near Denver, Colorado

A seismic -reflection survey was carried out near Denver , Colorado , for the U. S. Geological Survey , to determine if structures exist in the 12,000-ft sedimentary section or in the Precambrian basement that might explain the recent earthquake activity . No major faults were revealed in the sedimentary section. Reflections from a steeply dipping horizon believed to be in the basement complex may be indicative of faulting; however, the magnitude cannot be ascertained, as reflection events cannot be correlated at these depths. The results of the survey suggest the possibility of monitoring and studying subsurface structural conditions and related parameters in regions of seismic activity and/or suspected zones of tectonic instability.

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Mountains and plains Denver's geologic setting

A slice of geologic history is exposed to view in the Denver, Colorado area. Denver is situated on the High Plains near the east front of the Rocky Mountains. As one travels westward from Denver toward the mountains, successively older rocks are crossed from the geologically young rocks of the High Plains and the South Platte River valley to the older rocks of the foothills and the ancient rocks of the mountains. Thus, within a few miles,the journey turns back the pages of time in a lifesized textbook that vividly illustrates the geologic events that shaped the landscape.

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