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

作为美国国家科学基金会资助的科罗拉多高原岩心项目的一部分，该项目将通过在石化森林国家公园收集的岩石岩心来生成化学成分变化的连续记录。这项研究有三个主要目标,1)开发了解沉积物的化学变化的反映在过去的气候变化从2亿岁的河和泛滥平原系统,2)使用这个记录来开发一个理解的影响二氧化碳和地球轨道参数的变化在过去的气候变化和3)开发一个化学数据集,将提供一个基线的理解潜在的地下水污染物的分布(例如,,(U)在纳瓦霍族的邻近土地和周边地区从核心地层中取水。该项目产生的数据将作为纳瓦霍技术大学2022年夏季REU学生项目的基础。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，项目团队将通过罗格斯地质博物馆开发课程和推广产品，并促进新泽西和科罗拉多高原地区相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大片地区，在巨大的冲积平原上记录了三叠纪环境变化的历史，并以其包括恐龙和哺乳动物在内的大陆生态系统进化的化石记录而闻名。CPCP-1岩心的物理地层学、古地磁地层学和地质年代地层学已经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。一些小型项目已经证明了这些数据的效用，但是缺乏这些岩心的天气化学数据集阻碍了它们在古和现代（包括它们对地下水的影响）环境分析方面的潜力。该项目将通过获取连续的XRF化学数据来填补这一缺陷，这些数据将允许测试这些地层中记录的气候轨道速度（长偏心和倾斜周期）的假设，以及这些地层的周期性气候和深时间水文历史如何与潜在地质污染物的当前地层分布及其向当今含水层的迁移有关。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.