The Mount Zirkel Wilderness is a U.S. Wilderness Area located in Routt National Forest in northwest Colorado . The closest city is Steamboat Springs, Colorado . The wilderness is named after Mount Zirkel , the highest peak in the range at 12,182 feet (3,713 m), which itself is named after German geologist Ferdinand Zirkel .
5-693: Some areas within the wilderness display bedrock composed of metamorphic schists with large garnet crystals. Most of the wilderness is blanketed in dense spruce-fir forests , although it also contains alpine tundra , montane forest , meadow , and riparian habitats. The southern portion of the wilderness is largely made up of a unique habitat called ribbon forest , formed when large amounts of snow and wind keep tree growth restricted to north–south bands of trees, mostly about twenty feet across. The Buffalo Pass and Mad Creek regions receive more snowfall than anywhere else in Colorado. The central portion contains
10-413: Is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith ) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet . Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bedrock is often called an outcrop . The various kinds of broken and weathered rock material, such as soil and subsoil , that may overlie the bedrock are known as regolith . The surface of
15-433: The bedrock beneath the soil cover (regolith) is also known as rockhead in engineering geology , and its identification by digging, drilling or geophysical methods is an important task in most civil engineering projects. Superficial deposits can be very thick, such that the bedrock lies hundreds of meters below the surface. Exposed bedrock experiences weathering , which may be physical or chemical, and which alters
20-446: The structure of the rock to leave it susceptible to erosion . Bedrock may also experience subsurface weathering at its upper boundary, forming saprolite . A geologic map of an area will usually show the distribution of differing bedrock types, rock that would be exposed at the surface if all soil or other superficial deposits were removed. Where superficial deposits are so thick that the underlying bedrock cannot be reliably mapped,
25-540: The wilderness's highest peaks and encompasses alpine tundra. North of this, the lower elevations of the Encampment River headwaters are covered in dense lodgepole pine and spruce-fir forest, which was partially burned in the Beaver Creek Fire of summer 2016. This article related to a protected area in Colorado is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bedrock In geology , bedrock
#925074