GLACIATION IN THE TELLURIDE QUADRANGLE 613 
Except for deposits about the village of Ophir and near the 
mouth of Swamp Canyon, the valley of Howard Fork contains but 
little glacial débris; and of the deposits which may properly be 
classed as heavy drift that on the north side of the stream near 
Ophir is partially covered by débris derived from the gullies and 
ravines cut in the steep -southward-facing valley slope. This 
débris at a short distance north of the stream becomes at the surface 
at least a true alluvial deposit in the form of a series of alluvial 
fans, confluent at their lateral edges. The most conspicuous of 
these fans is that upon which the village of Ophir is built. It has 
a width (east-west) of about three-fourths of a mile, and its apex is 
about 400 feet above the main stream at the lower part of Staats- 
burg Gulch. 
In the lower part of the valley near Ophir Station and for a 
short distance to the east, the valley has the U-shape typical of 
glaciated valleys, rock in place outcrops at numerous points, and 
both the rock on the bottom and that on the sides of the valley 200 
to 300 feet or more above the stream is rounded, polished, and 
striated. Eastward from Ophir Station, the entire southward- 
facing slope of the valley affords but little direct evidence of 
glaciation; it is furrowed with gullies of sharp V-shaped cross- 
section down to 10,500 or 11,000 feet in elevation; below this 
elevation the valleys and ridges are not prominent on the slope. 
The appearance of a more uniform topography in this lower part is 
aided by the growth of aspen which is present in some places, and 
by the alluvial fans which extend across the flattened bottom. 
Deposits apparently glacial occur three-fourths of a mile north- 
west of Ophir village at 10,200 and 10,5co feet in elevation, 
respectively. On the south side of the valley less than half a mile 
east of Waterfall Creek, glacial débris with striated bowlders occurs 
up to about 10,350 feet. Again, on the south side of the stream 
and west of Swamp Canyon, the surface is covered with glacial 
drift up to about 11,000 feet. In part it lies in irregular hills, in 
the form of ridges or benches. This drift includes bowlders in _ 
variety, some of them well striated. 
- The thickness of the ice in the lower part of Howard Fork was 
probably about 1,000 feet. 
