The Gordon Gulch site (part of the former Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory) is a snow-dominated site covered by a mixed conifer forest. Underground, you’ll find a rock type called Paleoproterozoic biotite gneiss that was fractured during a series of mountain building events called the Laramide Orogeny, which occurred tens of millions of years ago. This site is important to our work due to its cold, dry climate, low regional compressive stress, and highly fractured bedrock.