Worked this up months ago, never posted it.
Which USGS quads in Colorado have the greatest surface area? In other words, if you took all the mountainous terrain in a given quad and flattened it out until it's a plane, how many square feet/meters/miles would it contain compared to its original geographic area?
Rank,Quad,SA Ratio
SA Ratio=ratio of surface area to geographic area
*West of I-25 only*
Top 10:
1 Vail East 1.133649
2 Grouse Mountain 1.126781
3 McHenrys Peak 1.125496
4 Isolation Peak 1.125257
5 Mount Powell 1.119894
6 Hayden Peak 1.113013
7 Crestone Peak 1.108145
8 Trail Ridge 1.108045
9 Mount Big Chief 1.106854
10 Monarch Lake 1.104552
Bottom 5( All San Luis Valley):
1076 Alamosa West 1.000018
1077 Hooper East 1.000012
1078 Hooper SE 1.000012
1079 Center South 1.00001
1080 Hooper West 1.000006
Whole list:
http://ned-files.com/listq3.cgi?st=co&list=8
Surprise: No San Juan quads in the top 10. Highest is Snowdon Peak at #25
Quad with the lowest average elevation in the top 50 is Eldorado Springs(#47).
This was done using digital data and many trig calculations(~500,000 per quad).
Is there practical use of this information? Not really, other than expanding ones knowledge.