The colorado Desert (ch10)

The Colorado Desert is a part of the much larger Sonoran Desert, which extends across southwest North America. It expands from the Mexican border in the South to the Mojave Desert in the North and from the Colorado River in the East to the peninsular mountain range in the West, which is approximately 7 million acres. It is the second largest least populous of the ten bioregions, with a population of about 375,000, according to the 1990 census figures. The Colorado Desert is of a much lower elevation than the Mojave Desert and much of the land lies below 1,000 feet. The Mountain peaks barely pass 3,000 feet and the common habitat includes sand, palm oasis, and desert wash. The summers are hot and dry and the winters are cool and moist. The Colorado River flows along the entire eastern area of the bioregion which it meets with Arizona. Specific species known to inhabit the area are animals like the Yuma antelope, ground squirrels, white singed doves, muskrats, deer, bobcats, and raccoons.

This picture depicts the sandy dunes throughout the desert.

Colorado is also home to thousands of snakes because of the hot weather and ideal sand pits which makes nice homes for snakes.

ch9 Dever Colorado

:The Mile High City:

Denver is centrally located and lies in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain region. Located on high plains at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, Denver has a sunny, cool, dry climate. The sun shines 300 days a year and the usually mild climate and nearby Rocky Mountain playground have made tourism one of the Mile High City's economic mainstays. With a lower cost of living compared to most major cities, exemplary health care and world class medical research facilities, massive rapid transit expansion plans, and abundant cultural and recreational opportunities, Denver is one of the nation's best cities.

The Rocky Mountains & Beer

The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. The major countries regions that are contain the mountains also include: Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Alberta, and Idaho. They were formed anywhere from 80 million to 55 million years ago by the Laramide orogeny. Since then, erosion by massive glaciers and water have carved the mountains into unbelievable valleys and peaks.

What could be better then then beautiful mountains, views, and landscapes? You guessed it...

BEER

Colorado is home to the largest single brewery facility in the world. The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth largest brewing company.

...you can see from the picture, the size of the brewery.

Manufacturing

The Product Development and Manufacturing (PDM) Core offers product translational services to academic, government, and industry partners for the development and manufacture of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics used in preclinical animal studies and phase I and II human clinical trials. The PDM Core's product development department provides prelim product characterization and formulation, The PDM Core’s quality system, maintained by the Quality Control and Quality Assurance Departments, provides testing, validation, and auditing for GLP and cGMP-compliant projects, as required by the Code of Federal Regulations. Product release testing of manufactured products, including safety, stability, purity, potency, identity, and sterility testing, is performed as per the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), where applicable. Procedural validation is performed by documentation review and systematic inspections. Auditing services for GLP projects are available for outside projects.

Megalopolis

Huge areas of settlements can be found in the Front Range that goes from Denver to Casper, Wyoming and then down into Santa Fe, New Mexico that connect along interstate 25. However, it is not part of eastern Megalopolis. This region cannot contend with the eastern Megalopolis, but population is supposed to rise due to its high metropolitan setup.

-With retail businesses having a projected 5 percent increase in 2011 and the median home prices increasing around 2 percent, the recession did not hit Denver the hardest according to the metro Denver economist.

-People see potential as Denver being a strong economic city, so tons of development is going into the cities business infrastructure. Other pull factors include the safety of living and the cities environmental background that include denying the right to have the Olympics in 1967 because of environmental issues.

-Another thing that helps make Denver such a largely populated region is the fact they have a lot of sports teams that include the Colorado Rockies, Denver Nuggets, Denver Broncos and the Colorado Avalanche.

-Like every city in the country, sprawl is happening at a very rapid pace into mountains and nearby forest.

Human Activity

The first European settlement in Colorado was made by the Spaniard Francisco Escalante in 1776. The man who first stepped foot onto the land was believed to have been James Pursley, a fur trader in 1804. Part of Colorado was turned into the United States control as a part of the Louisiana Purchase. Some of it was then added to Texas after it won independence from Mexico in 1836. And the Western portion was claimed by Mexico in 1848. In 1858, the gold hunting began in Colorado and this brought a movement to form a territorial government. this became complicated due to the fact that parts of the territory was claimed by Kansas, Utah, New Mexico, and Nebraska. however, congress gathered parts of all the states together and soon the territory was called Colorado and achieved statehood in 1876.

Religion in Colorado began with the Spanish explorers who had a claim to the land, but who did not settle, were Roman Catholic, but the first American settlers were mainly Methodists, Episcopalians, and Lutherans. Roman Catholics make up the biggest group in the state with 752,505 members. There were about 72,000 members in the Jewish community in 2000. That same year there were about 72 Buddhist, 7 Hundu, and 12 Muslim congregations in the state. Roughly 60% of the population were not counted as members of any religious organization.

Colorado's Geography

Colorado has a Longitude of 102°W to 109°W and a Latitude of 37°N to 41°N. Colorado is 380 miles long and 280 miles wide. The geographic center of Colorado is located in Park County, 30 miles NW of Pike's Peak. Colorado is bordered by Wyoming and Nebraska on the North. And to the South is New Mexico and Oklahoma. The East side is bordered by Nebraska and Kansas and to the West by Utah. Thus, making Colorado a landlocked state. The Southwest corner meets Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. This spot is best known as the Four Corners..

and..,

Colorado covers 104,100 square miles of terrain making it the 8th largest state of our 50 states. It only has 371 square miles of area covered by land and 103,730 square miles of land. The highest point in Colorado, and in the Rocky Mountains, is Mt. Elbert at 14,440 feet above sea level. Colorado is home to more mountains 14,000 feet or higher then any over state. It is home to the Colorado River, the Rio Grande, the Arkansas River, and South Platte River. It is also home to the Grand Lake, Blue Mesa Reservoir, and John Martin Reservoir.

Colorado River...