Collaborative Research: RAPID: Opportunity to acquire continuous, high-resolution geochemical proxies for paleoclimate, paleoenvironment, and modern hydrogeology from CPCP cores

作为NSF资助的科罗拉多高原取芯项目的一部分，该项目将通过在石化森林国家公园收集的岩芯产生化学成分变化的连续记录。该研究有三个主要目标，1）了解沉积物化学变化如何反映2亿年前河流和洪泛平原系统过去气候的变化，2）利用这一记录来了解二氧化碳和地球轨道参数变化对过去气候变化的影响;开发一个化学数据集，以提供对潜在地下水污染物分布的基线了解（例如，在纳瓦霍民族的邻近土地和周围地区，从核心地层取水。在这个项目中产生的数据将作为一个项目的基础上，为2022年夏季REU学生从纳瓦霍技术大学。此外，该项目将支持两名早期职业科学家和两名哥伦比亚大学研究生。最后，项目小组将通过罗格斯地质博物馆编制课程和推广产品，并促进在新泽西和科罗拉多高原地区开展有关环境问题的协同活动。三叠纪Chinle组和Moenkopi组占据了科罗拉多高原的巨大面积，记录了三叠纪在一个巨大的冲积平原上的环境变化历史，并以其包括恐龙和哺乳动物在内的大陆生态系统演化的化石记录而闻名。CPCP-1岩心的物理、古地磁和年代地层学已在最近的一系列论文中进行了描述，并将其置于更大的古环境和全球时间背景中，但岩心的化学地层学尚未进行分析。几个小项目已经证明了这些数据的实用性，但缺乏这些核心的天气化学数据集阻碍了他们的潜力，古和现代（包括其对地下水的影响）环境分析。该项目将通过获取连续的X射线荧光化学数据来填补这一缺陷，从而可以对气候轨道定步假设进行测试（长偏心和倾斜周期）以及这些地层的周期性气候和深层水文历史如何与潜在地质污染物的当前地层分布及其迁移到当今含水层的关系。该奖项反映了NSF的基金会的使命是履行其法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will generate a continuous record of chemical composition changes through rock cores collected in Petrified Forest National Park as part of the NSF-funded Colorado Plateau Coring Project. The study has three main objectives, 1) to develop an understanding of how changes in the chemistry of sediments reflect changes in past climate from 200-million-year-old river and flood plain systems, 2) to use this record to develop an understanding of the influence of both CO2 and changes in Earth’s orbital parameters on past climatic variations and 3) develop a chemical dataset that will provide a baseline understanding of the distribution of potential ground water contaminants (e.g., As, U) in adjacent lands of the Navajo Nation and surrounding regions that draw water from the cored strata. The data generated in this project will serve as the basis of a project for a 2022 summer REU student from Navajo Technical University. In addition, this project will support two early career scientists and two Columbia University graduate students. Finally, the project team will develop curriculum and outreach products through the Rutgers Geology Museum and facilitate synergistic activities on related environmental issues in New Jersey and Colorado Plateau regions. The Triassic Chinle and Moenkopi Formations occupy huge areas of the Colorado Plateau and record the history of Triassic environmental change on an immense alluvial plain and are famous for their fossil record of the evolution of continental ecosystems including dinosaurs and mammals. The physical, paleomagnetic, and geochronological stratigraphy of CPCP-1 cores has been described in a suite of recent papers and placed into a larger paleoenvironmental and global temporal context, but the chemical stratigraphy of the cores has yet to be analyzed. Several small projects have demonstrated the utility of such data, but the lack of synoptic chemical datasets from these cores hinders their potential for both paleo- and modern (including their impact on groundwater) environmental analysis. This project will fill this deficit with the acquisition of continuous XRF chemical data that will permit tests of hypotheses of orbital pacing of climate (long eccentricity and inclination cycles) as recorded in these strata and of how cyclical climate and the deep time hydrological history of these strata relates to present stratigraphic distribution of potential geogenic contaminants and their migration into present day aquifers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.