• Assessment of Mineral Rights

• Mineral and Mining Potential

• Mapping,

• Abandoned Mine Land Inventory,

• Abandoned Mine Closure,

• Conservation Easement Documentation ("Remoteness Reports")

• Hydrologic Studies

• Clean Water Act Compliance

• Stormwater, Sourcewater Plans

•Jurisdictional Wetland Delineation

• Water Quality Assessment - Project Design, Sampling, and Data Analysis

• Riparian and Aquatic Habitat mapping, Floodplain Mapping

• Permitting and Regulatory Compliance

• Property, improvements, land, water, mineral estate features mapping (parcel boundaries, fences, springs, irrigation systems, landcover types, buildings, etc.)

• Design of resource inventory projects, Trimble Data Dictionaries, Trimble Training

• Spatial Analysis, Modeling, Remote Sensing, Projections and Migration

• Property and improvements mapping

• Water Rights and Irrigation Exhibits

• Custom Design and Re-design of Web Sites for your purpose, schedule and budget (Custom web site design, hosting, imaging, optimization, and site maintenance services powered by renewable energy for Government, Business, Non-profit, Artists, Scientists, and You!)

• Tailored Web Site Maintenance

• Search Engine Optimization

• 100% Solar Powered Hosting option (email and web)

» Learn More

MtnGeoGeek was founded by Lynn Padgett as a sole proprietorship in 2004. MtnGeoGeek Solar Powered Web Design and Hosting served as a creative outlet and allowed Lynn to utilize her design, photographic imaging, and computer programming skills to create web sites for local government and non-profit organizations who had small projects and needed affordable services. Early clients included the Town of Ridgway, Black Canyon Land Trust, Bio-Logic Environmental, Alternative Power Enterprises, and Uncompahgre Board of Cooperative Services.

MtnGeoGeek, LLC was organized as a partnership between owners Lynn Padgett and Jeff Litteral in January 2009, and the scope of services offered was expanded to include multi-disciplinary natural resource consulting projects with emphasis on geology, hydrology, wetlands, and mapping.

Lynn Padgett is a professional hybrid and enjoys combining skills from multiple disciplines in complex ways. Lynn holds a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Geology from Western State College, CO.  She received several undergraduate academic achievement awards including awards from Geology Department faculty, Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, and Association of Women Geoscientists.  She has extensive professional experience in geology, hydrology, GIS, GPS, and wetland science throughout Colorado.

Lynn has completed graduate level coursework in Hydrogeology/Groundwater Engineering at the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from Pennsylvania State University; Wetland Ecology & Conservation and botany at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado; and has completed the 38-hour U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wetland Delineation & Management Training Program.  She is approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Wetland Consultants for the Sacramento District and Colorado/Gunnison Basin.

Lynn has been lead scientist and project manager on over 50 Assessments of Mineral and Mining Potential, and specializes in analyzing mineral and mining potential for properties having split estates and conservation easement documentation reports.  Lynn has collaborated with other technical specialists on baseline inventories for conservation easements, and natural resource inventories.  Lynn has worked as a hydrologist and geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey where she analyzed contaminated groundwater migration and water quality at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal; as a geologist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management characterizing and inventorying abandoned mine lands, abandoned mine features and acid mine drainage; and worked as geoscientist and soil lab manager at a geotechnical engineering firm.  She has been an Earth Team Volunteer assisting the National Resource Conservation Service with the Ridgway Area Soil Survey.  She has taught Physical Geology and Labs at Mesa State College, Montrose Campus.  She has served on the Ouray County Planning Commission, Gunnison Basin Round Table, and is currently serving her first term as an elected Ouray County Commissioner.

She is co-author of Land Conservation and Mineral Development Handbook, (Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts 2009); and co-author, GIS modeling of Colorado Sagebrush A Conservation Assessment & Strategy, (BIO-Logic Environmental contracted by Colorado Division of Wildlife).

Lynn has been an active member of the American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG), Colorado Chapter since 2000.

» Email Lynn

MtnGeoGeek, llc, performs assessments of mineral and mining potential for large and small properties, that may have split or severed mineral rights. Two projects in Spring 2010 were performed for two different parties contemplating purchasing vacant land. One party knew that they eventually wanted to put the parcel they might purchase in Ouray County, under conservation easement, since it is adjacent to other lands they have conserved with a land trust.

The other, in Gunnison County near Marble, just needed to be sure they understood who owned the mineral rights and what that could mean to their dreams of building a house on a scenic parcel next to Crystal River.

MtnGeoGeek, llc geologists have over a decade of experience performing due diligence and detailed Assessments of Mineral and Mining Potential for land trusts and land owners throughout the State of Colorado. The purpose of most mineral assessments is to determine if a property is in accordance with federal laws governing the tax deductibility of conservation easements in which the ownership of the surface estate and mineral interests has been separated.  The Internal Revue Code §170(h)(5)(B)(ii) states that for such donations, the conservation purpose will be considered to be perpetually protected if the probability of surface mining on the property is so remote as to negligible.  Federal Treasury Regulations 26CFR 1.170A-14 (g)(4) further state that a deduction will not be denied in the case of certain methods of mining that may have limited, localized impact on the real property but that are not irremediably destructive of significant conservation interests.

MtnGeoGeek, llc, has been Project Coordinator for the Colorado Water Quality Monitoring Council (CWQMC) and the Colorado Data Sharing Network Project (CDSN) since February 2009. As Project Coordinators, Jeff Litteral and Lynn Padgett have assisted in creation of CWQMC's new web site, provided oversight and deliverables for the 319 Grant, facilitated the transition to a new data management system (AWQMS), and are working with Gold Systems to create an online, interactive map of network partners' monitoring stations and public water quality data.

» Colorado Water Quality Monitoring Council web site

MtnGeoGeek, llc, was contracted by Colorado Land and Water Specialists (CLAWS) to provided a GIS analysis and calculation of irrigated acreage for two ranch developments in Gunnison County. We mapped irrigation acreage to the irrigation ditch and calculated how much irrigated acreage could be dried up through development of homesite's and roadways.

MtnGeoGeek has been the web master for the Town of Ridgway since 2005. In May 2010 we went live with a new web site for the Town, with the goal of showing off the friendly and beautiful atmosphere of our Town, and helpful staff. We hope the virtual Town Hall will be useful to residents and visitors.

» Town of Ridgway web site

Dana Orzel and his team chase the sun and wind throughout the west, installing incredible energy and heating systems. This site, created in early 2010, took the colors on Dana's Great Solar Works! truck and incorporated them into a web site theme. The site is designed to help clients better understand their systems, and to clients get information to their designers to best customize energy and heating systems to fit the client's needs and their system site.

» Great Solar Works! web site

Black Canyon Land Trust's Mission is "To serve as a non-political, non-governmental organization that encourages and assists private landowners in preserving and sustaining the rural heritage, natural, and cultural conservation values primarily in the watersheds of the Uncompahgre, North Fork of the Gunnison, and lower Gunnison Rivers and surrounding areas, for the benefit of the public, today and in perpetuity."

To celebrate the land trust's recent LTAC Accreditation and State of Colorado Certification BCLT asked for a redesign of their outdated web site. BCLT's service region includes rural mountain and valley areas still only served by dial-up internet. This was an especially fun project -- to make an inexpensive web site that would be attractive and dynamic for high- and slow- speed internet users, and also easliy maintained on a non-profit's shoestring budget.

» Black Canyon Land Trust web site