Arid region of south-central Wyoming, United States
The Killpecker Sand Dunes of the Red Desert support a wide range of wildlife and vegetation, ranging from elk who use the adjoining sagebrush steppe for shelter to aquatic organisms that thrive in snowmelt ponds. Photo by the Bureau of Land Management.
The Red Desert is a high-altitude desert and sagebrush steppe located in the south-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, comprising approximately 9,320 square miles (24,100 square kilometers). Among the natural features in the Red Desert region are the Great Divide Basin, a unique endorheicdrainage basin formed by a division in the Continental Divide, and the Killpecker Sand Dunes, the largest living dune system in the United States. In the 19th century, the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass, just north of the Red Desert. Today, busy Interstate 80 bisects the desert's southern region while gas field roads cross the desert.
The majority of the Red Desert is public land managed by the Rock Springs and Rawlins field offices of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The region is rich in oil, natural gas, uranium, and coal. An estimated 84% of the Red Desert has been "industrialized" by oil and gas drilling or by mining operations and associated roads.[1]
The Red Desert supports an abundance of wildlife, despite its scarcity of water and vegetation. The largest migratory herd of pronghorn in the lower 48 states and a rare desert elk herd, said to be the world's largest, live in the desert.[2] Ponds fed by summer snowmelt attract a wide range of migratory birds such as ducks, trumpeter swans,[citation needed] and white pelicans.[citation needed] Herds of wild, free-roaming horses protected under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 roam the area, despite roundups and population control efforts by the BLM. Bison were once common as well and their skulls and horns can occasionally be found there.
Geography
Water
Melting snowpack is the primary source of surface water in Wyoming, such as this temporary wetland in the Muddy Creek Watershed of the Red Desert.
In a land known for its scarcity of precipitation, water has been a powerful force in shaping the Red Desert. Former rivers from the Paleocene and later epochs and the ancient Lake Gosiute deposited between 10,000 feet (3,000m) and 20,000 feet (6,100m) of sediment in the Red Desert's geographic basin.[3]
Lake Gosiute began to fill the Red Desert for the first time in the early Eocene Epoch. Subsequent climate and tectonic activities during the lake's lifespan (four million years) saw repeated patterns of rising and falling water levels. Gosiute reached its maximum surface area of 15,000 square miles (39,000km2) with its shoreline stretching into Utah.[3] During other times the lake evaporated completely.
Lake Gosiute left behind a high concentration of saline materials and a deep primal ooze of organic matter. The former produced today's highly valued mineral trona, while the latter created coal-bed methane gas, coal, and the world's largest known oil-shale deposit.[3] Energy sources have made the region the center of today's natural gas boom in Wyoming.[citation needed]
The contemporary Red Desert watershed includes saline lakes and ponds that feature mud flats during wet years and dry lakes in droughts. Intermittent streams, dependent primarily upon snow melt but accelerated by summer thundershowers, cut arroyos throughout the basin. Such small earth moving events, repeated over the eons, combined with the sculpting forces of wind have created the rugged landscape of buttes, pinnacles, gulches, and flats that characterize the Red Desert.[3]
Summer rains produce standing water in the desert, which supports wildlife, such as pronghorn, deer, and birds.
The Continental Divide branches to the desert's northwest and rejoins in the southeast, creating the Great Divide Basin, from which no surface water drains. Steamboat Mountain and other desert mesas or buttes provide seeps and springs that serve as water sources for small streams, such as Jack Morrow Creek. While the basin's interior waters are intermittent, the desert is bounded to the west by the Green River and to the east by the North Platte River.
In 2009, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was poised to launch an environmental impact statement regarding a proposed 560 miles (900km) pipeline to divert water from the Green River to population centers near Denver, Colorado. The $4 billion project targeted a route east from Flaming Gorge Reservoir across the Red Desert to Laramie, Wyoming, and then south to the Colorado Front Range.[4]
Killpecker Sand Dunes
Steamboat Mountain, overlooking the Killpecker Sand Dunes, provides habitat for desert elk.
The Killpecker Sand Dunes stretch 55 miles (89km) east from the Green River Basin across the Continental Divide into the Great Divide Basin and encompass approximately 109,000 acres (440km2).[5] These living dunes, one of North America's largest fields,[3] owe their presence to two key factors:[6]
The Big Sandy and Little Sandy Rivers northeast of Rock Springs, Wyoming, where large volumes of sand accumulated on their banks during glacial melting from the Wind River Mountains.
Westerly winds that during the past 20,000 years have moved the sand eastward across the continental divide to its present location.
A vital function of the dune fields is storing snowmelt and rain which support vegetation and wildlife. Water percolates deep into sand where it is safe from evaporating winds and sun. Such water is stored for access by basin large sagebrush and other vegetation depending upon the dunes' degree of stabilization. The few plant species that can survive on the active dunes include:[6]
Such plants help stabilize the sand by slightly reducing ground-level wind velocity. Stabilization is a cumulative process. Eventually the dunes may become stable as plant cover increases—assuming disruptive forces such as drought, fire, livestock and human traffic are not present.
Dune beetles and other insects in addition to small mammals such as shrews, white-footed mice and kangaroo rats inhabit the dunes. Their presence attracts owls, eagles, bobcats and other predators. Moreover, an oasis of short-lived summer ponds that occur in swales at the base of the dunes support migratory shore birds and waders, as well as large game animals such as elk. Cattle, sheep, and free roaming wild horses also frequent the ponds. The fresh water also provides a habitat for aquatic organism such as salamanders and freshwater shrimp.
Active sand dunes within the 10,500 acres (42km2) of the Killpecker Sand Dunes area are open to off-road vehicles. Motorists are required to avoid the fresh water ponds scattered throughout the dunes.
Plant and wildlife
Proposed energy development will likely further reduce an already declining pronghorn population in an area that includes the Southern Red Desert, according to a study by National Wildlife Federation.
At first glance the Red Desert's largely dry, barren landscape seems an unlikely location for some 350 wildlife species and more than 1,000 plant species.[3] The sagebrush steppe and bunchgrass habitat support 40,000 to 50,000 pronghorn antelope, the largest migratory herd in the lower forty-eight states, mule deer and the world's largest desert elk herd.[2][8]
What the desert lacks in concentrated animal habitat, it makes up in expanse. The Red Desert is home to the largest unfenced area in the continental United States.[9] Nearly three-quarters of the area is covered by sagebrush grassland.
Sagebrush is a critical habitat for a variety of wildlife ranging from pronghorn which browse it year round to small insects.[3] However, habitat is constrained by oil and gas roads along with drilling and mining. Sagebrush also provides cover for animals such as elk and the pygmy rabbit. Elk depend upon tall brush near Steamboat Mountain for shelter during spring calving season and elsewhere for shade during the heat of summer. Yet the broader impact of sagebrush upon the ecology is its function as a living snow fence. Windblown snow builds up on the lee side of the brush during winter. This effectively stores moisture that is released into the soil in late spring and early summer.
The result of the Red Desert's unique ecology is that wildlife is varied. Predators such as coyotes and the occasional mountain lion, swift fox, and kit fox are attracted by the area's mammals for feed. Pocket gophers, badgers, sage grouse, sage sparrows, and the sage thrasher are associated with the sagebrush habitat. The Red Desert is home to a range of burrowing animals. The white-tailed prairie dog, Great Basin spadefoot toad, tiger salamander, pygmy rabbits, and sagebrush lizards all go underground for protection from the desert's extreme weather and predators. Similarly, the burrowing owl nests and roosts underground, typically in burrows dug by prairie dogs. Migratory summer birds such as the white-faced ibis and white pelican are found at snow-melt ponds on the desert floor and at temporal wetlands.[10]
High above the desert floor, the Ferris Mountains and Green Mountains rim the Red Desert to the northeast. The mountains' boreal environment reaches as high as 10,037 feet (3,059m), in the case of Ferris Peak, and supports snowshoe hares, red squirrels, and pockets of big horn sheep. The high elevation with its cooler summer range attracts elk and mule deer. Prairie falcons, northern harriers and other raptors soar along mountain ridges and canyon rims looking for feed such as migratory mountain plovers, a small ground bird.
The mountain plover is one of three species protected by the Endangered Species Act present in the Red Desert.[11] The bald eagle and the black-footed ferret are also listed. However, the bald eagle is seldom seen in the desert because of the lack of streams or lakes with accompanying fish. Black-footed ferrets, which feed upon prairie dogs, are also rare.
Cultural and economic landscape
A truck hauling coal for the Jim Bridger Power Plant near Point of Rocks, Wyo., dwarfs a nearby wild horse.
Scientists trace the story of human presence in the Red Desert back 12,000 years.[3] Striking evidence of early human inhabitants is seen in rock art found at the Boars Tusk, East Flaming Gorge, and Seedskadee areas. Researchers interpret the petroglyphs carved into rock at these sites as biographical, ceremonial, or spiritual expressions.[3] The Red Desert's Black Art petrogylph is thought to date back 11,500 years, according to anthropologist and cultural historian Russell L. Tanner who says the rock art may be the continent's oldest.[3]
Tanner refers to the Red Desert as a marketplace and crossroads during more recent times of interaction between nomadic Plains Indians, including Blackfeet, Crows, and Shoshone. He writes that rock art of the times, especially along the Green River, sprang from a melding of Indian cultures represented by imagery of the Plains Indian warrior tradition.[3] Other pre-historic evidence include Native American artifacts estimated to be more than 10,000 years old found in the Killpecker Sand Dunes, often in company with bison bones.[6]
The Red Desert's ranching industry includes remote cattle and horse ranches.
Generations of American families, beginning in the 1840s, also left their mark upon the desert as they migrated westward along emigrant trails. The environmental impact of an estimated 350,000 pioneers and their wagon trains traveling through Wyoming between 1841 and 1868 is still visible today. In some cases, such as at Guernsey, wagon wheels wore ruts deep into solid sandstone. However, most trail ruts are less dramatic but still evidence of a people's history worn into the earth.
Historic trails used by nineteenth century stagecoaches are also part of the Red Desert's legacy. Of particular note, the Overland Stage initially followed the Platte River and the Oregon Trail to South Pass, but later shifted to a route across southern Wyoming. Stagecoach ruts in the desert are still visible in a variety of locations including north of Baggs. A short-lived gold rush in the mountains north of the Red Desert beginning in 1867[12] led to stage and freight service from Point of Rocks on the Union Pacific Railroad north to South Pass City. There are segments of the Oregon, California, Mormon, and Pony Express trails, along with archeological and fossil artifacts.[8]
A westward-looking nation in 1869 united its eastern and western shores with the First transcontinental railroad, whose route traversed the Red Desert. University of Wyoming historian Phil Roberts described the notion of building a transcontinental railroad as "today's equivalent of the mission to Mars: Big, expensive and impossible".[13] The preliminary survey for the railroad produced the first map of the Great Basin and Southern Wyoming, according to author Stephen E. Ambrose.[14] The Red Desert's lack of water presented a problem for steam locomotives of the time. The Union Pacific Company found reliable water by drilling deep artesian wells in the desert. Some of these railroad wells, such as at Wamsutter continue to supply much needed water today for residents and the influx of oil and gas field workers who live in temporary housing or "man camps".
Frontier expansion after the railroad's completion spurred new trade routes such as the New Fork Wagon Road that ran 80 miles (130km) from Rock Springs, Wyoming, to New Fork.[15] The New Fork Wagon Road connected isolated ranchers and settlements in northern Sweetwater and eastern Sublette Counties. The volume of cargo is evidenced by freighters of the time who were known to hitch as many as 18 horses to haul five freight wagons at once.[15]
The Union Pacific Railroad helped launch western towns along its route, like Wamsutter. Beginning in 1913, the Lincoln Highway connected them. The Lincoln Highway's coast-to-coast route also cut across the Red Desert as it passed through Wyoming. Interstate 80, nearly a half century later in 1956, replaced the Lincoln Highway as America's premier continental roadway. Today, Interstate 80 carries an estimated 11,000 vehicles across the desert daily.[16] The four-lane highway slices the desert into a north and south Red Desert in terms of wildlife migration.[3]
Adobe Town is at the center of conflict between conservationists who want to block the area from natural gas exploration and industry seeking to expand into the region.
Other Expansion Era roads branched off from Union Pacific railheads at Point of Rocks, Green River and Bryan. These trade routes linked remote mining, ranching, and military settlements. Signs of these early trade routes, such as stage stations and freighter camps, are still visible in areas such as Freighter's Gap.[11]
Roadways used by modern-day freighters hauling oilfield supplies have created a spider web of dirt and gravel roads that crisscross the far reaches of the desert. BP, an energy company, reports service people associated with the Wamsutter gas field travel 800,000 miles (1,300,000km) per month, down from 1,000,000 miles (1,600,000km).[18] The explosion of natural gas wells drilled during Wyoming's most recent energy industry boom continues with more than 2,000 projected wells in the Wamsutter gas field to be operational by 2020.[19] The gas field encompasses an area in the Red Desert about 55 miles (89km) long and 35 miles (56km) wide.[18] Advances in drilling technology now allow grouping of multiple wells on a single drilling pad, thus reducing the footprint upon the land. Meanwhile, BLM expects the expansion in energy development to continue in the Red Desert including the Jack Morrow Hills of 600,000 acres (2,400km2) near South Pass.[20]
The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately 122 miles (196 km) long and 74 miles (119 km) wide, extending from the Continental Divide on the northwest rim into New Mexico on the south. It contains 6 counties and portions of 3 others. It is an extensive high-elevation depositional basin of approximately 8,000 square miles (21,000 km2) with an average elevation of 7,664 feet (2,336 m) above sea level. The valley is a section of the Rio Grande Rift and is drained to the south by the Rio Grande, which rises in the San Juan Mountains to the west of the valley and flows south into New Mexico. The San Luis Valley has a cold desert climate but has substantial water resources from the Rio Grande and groundwater.
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted for both its arid climate and the basin and range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin in Death Valley to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than 100 miles (160 km) away at the summit of Mount Whitney. The region spans several physiographic divisions, biomes, ecoregions, and deserts.
The Platte River is a major river in the State of Nebraska. It is about 310 mi (500 km) long; measured to its farthest source via its tributary, the North Platte River, it flows for over 1,050 miles (1,690 km). The Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which itself is a tributary of the Mississippi River which flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The Platte over most of its length is a broad, shallow, meandering stream with a sandy bottom and many islands—a braided stream.
The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin and Range ecoregion defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United States Geological Survey. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The desert spans large portions of Nevada and Utah, and extends into eastern California. The desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America, in addition to the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts.
The Sandhills, often written Sand Hills, is a region of mixed-grass prairie on grass-stabilized sand dunes in north-central Nebraska, covering just over one quarter of the state. The dunes were designated a National Natural Landmark in 1984.
The Great Divide Basin or Great Divide Closed Basin is an area of land in the Red Desert of Wyoming where none of the water falling as rain to the ground drains into any ocean, directly or indirectly. It is thus an endorheic basin, one of several in the United States that adjoin the Continental Divide. To the south and west of the basin is the Green River watershed, draining to the Gulf of California/Pacific Ocean; to the north and east is the North Platte watershed, draining to the Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic Ocean. The basin is very roughly rectangular in shape; the northwest corner is at Oregon Buttes near South Pass, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Lander, and the southeast corner is in the Sierra Madre Range near Bridger Pass, about 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Rawlins.
Cimarron National Grassland is a National Grassland located in Morton County, Kansas, United States, with a very small part extending eastward into Stevens County. Cimarron National Grassland is located near Comanche National Grassland which is across the border in Colorado. The grassland is administered by the Forest Service together with the Pike and San Isabel National Forests and the Comanche National Grassland, from common headquarters located in Pueblo, Colorado. There are local ranger district offices in Elkhart, Kansas. The grassland is the largest area of public land in the state of Kansas.
The Little Sahara Recreation Area is a large area of sand dunes, hills and sagebrush flats located in the northeast corner of the Sevier Desert in Juab County in the west central part of Utah, United States.
Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge is located in the U.S. state of Nebraska and includes 45,818 acres (185 km2). The refuge contains the largest protected continuous sand dunes in the U.S. A dozen small lakes and numerous ponds are fed by underground aquifers in areas where the sand dunes are below the water table. Some of the dunes are covered in shrubs and grasses, while others are completely bare. After the end of the Pinedale glaciation, the Holocene glacial retreat exposed the sand dunes that had been deposited in their current location by the vast continental glaciers. This refuge manages the North Platte National Wildlife Refuge and together they form the Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
Interstate 80 (I-80) is a part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey. In Wyoming, the Interstate Highway runs 402.76 miles (648.18 km) from the Utah state line near Evanston east to the Nebraska state line in Pine Bluffs. I-80 connects Cheyenne, Wyoming's capital and largest city, with several smaller cities along the southern tier of Wyoming, including Evanston, Green River, Rock Springs, Rawlins, and Laramie. The highway also connects those cities with Salt Lake City to the west and Omaha to the east. In Cheyenne, I-80 intersects I-25 and has Wyoming's only auxiliary Interstate, I-180. The Interstate runs concurrently with US Highway 30 (US 30) for most of their courses in Wyoming. I-80 also has shorter concurrencies with US 189 near Evanston, US 191 near Rock Springs, and US 287 and Wyoming Highway 789 (WYO 789) near Rawlins. The Interstate has business loops through all six cities along its course as well as a loop serving Fort Bridger and Lyman east of Evanston.
The Eastern Cascades Slopes and Foothills ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, and California. In the rain shadow of the Cascade Range, the eastern side of the mountains experiences greater temperature extremes and receives less precipitation than the west side. Open forests of ponderosa pine and some lodgepole pine distinguish this region from the Cascades ecoregion, where hemlock and fir forests are more common, and from the lower, drier ecoregions to the east, where shrubs and grasslands are predominant. The vegetation is adapted to the prevailing dry, continental climate and frequent wildfire. Volcanic cones and buttes are common in much of the region.
The Blue Mountains ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Pacific Northwest, mainly in the state of Oregon, with small areas over the state border in Idaho and southeastern Washington. It is also contiguous with the World Wildlife Fund's Blue Mountain forests ecoregion.
The Northern Basin and Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and California. It contains dissected lava plains, rolling hills, alluvial fans, valleys, and scattered mountain ranges in the northern part of the Great Basin. Although arid, the ecoregion is higher and cooler than the Snake River Plain to the north and has more available moisture and a cooler climate than the Central Basin and Range to the south. Its southern boundary is determined by the highest shoreline of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, which once inundated the Central Basin and Range. The western part of the region is internally drained; its eastern stream network drains to the Snake River system.
Clark is a community located approximately 30 miles (50 km) north of Cody on Wyoming Highway 120, in Park County, Wyoming, United States. Clark is unincorporated, and has no specific central "town site" per se, or town services. It is included in the Powell Zip Code area, which is approximately 30 miles (50 km) away, but has no other formal connection to Powell except the school district.
Minidoka National Wildlife Refuge is located on the Snake River Plain in south-central Idaho, 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Rupert. It includes about 80 miles (130 km) of shoreline around Lake Walcott, from Minidoka Dam upstream about 25 miles (40 km).
The Wyoming Basin shrub steppe ecoregion, within the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, is a shrub steppe in the northwestern United States.
Fossil Lake is a dry lakebed in the remote high desert country of northern Lake County in the U.S. state of Oregon. During the Pleistocene epoch, Fossil Lake and the surrounding basin were covered by an ancient lake. Numerous animals used the lake resources. Over time, the remains of many of these animals became fossilized in the lake sediments. As a result, Fossil Lake has been an important site for fossil collection and scientific study for well over a century. Over the years, paleontologists have found the fossil remains of numerous mammals as well as bird and fish species there. Some of these fossils are 2 million years old.
Mojave Trails National Monument is a large U.S. National Monument located in the state of California between Interstates 15 and 40. It partially surrounds the Mojave National Preserve. It was designated by President Barack Obama on February 12, 2016, along with Castle Mountains National Monument and Sand to Snow National Monument, also in southern California. It is under the administration of the Bureau of Land Management.
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