by Paul E. Olsen, Celina A. Suarez, Abhishek RoyChowdhury, Abhishek RoyChowdhury, Wout Krijgsman

We request partial support from ICDP for drilling and core/downhole logging for four cores at three sites spanning ~67 Myr of the Triassic and Early Jurassic section at three sites on, and adjacent to, the Colorado Plateau in Arizona and Utah, USA, for the Colorado Plateau Coring Project phase 2 (CPCP-2). This is part of the larger CPCP-2 endeavor involving matching funds from US NSF, NASA, Bureau of Indian Affairs and ICDP participants. The purpose of CPCP-2 is to provide core material for the following multidisciplinary goals. 1) Test the overarching theory that major radiative balance perturbations resulted in the most impactful Earth System events over the critical early Mesozoic dawn of the modern world. 2) Generate an exportable U-Pb calibrated paleomagnetic polarity time scale that will allow tests of alternative paleobiological and astrogeochronological hypotheses especially involving mass extinctions and chaotic diffusion of the secular frequencies of the Solar System. 3) Develop a pristine core-based elemental chemostratigraphy for the Colorado Plateau to both identify potential stratigraphically-hosted geogenic contaminants in the cores and boreholes and a basis to test hypotheses that will contribute context for an integrated predictive understanding of these contaminants. In addition, two CPCP-2 core holes will be repurposed as water wells to test the new transformative direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) system to remove water contaminants and serve the local Navajo Nation communities. CPCP-2 will also train Navajo Nation and other undergraduate and graduate students, make a short video and public exhibits at Navajo Technical University, the Navajo Museum, and St. George Discovery Site. Our experienced project team is diverse and balanced. The 24-month duration includes coring and logging of the three sites contiguously to reduce costs plus initial core processing at the NSF CDS facility. The remainder of the work focuses on logging of the stratigraphy and acquiring geophysical, geochemical, spectroscopic, spectrophotometric, paleomagnetic and geochronologic data for testing Earth system hypotheses and integration with the JET and Junggar projects. CPCP-2 will serve societal needs by developing a framework for understanding the integrated history of water contamination and providing an analog laboratory for anthropogenic change of past extreme climate and environmental variability under very high pCO2. This is an extensively revised resubmission of the 07-2021-Full Proposal that has followed SAG/ICDP recommendations.

• Data derived from CPCP-2 cores and core holes will be used to address the following large-scale questions via specific testable hypotheses:
• 1) How did the carbon cycle, temperature, hydrologic cycle, and biotic evolution on the continent change with emplacement of large igneous provinces and known asteroid impacts through the Triassic and Early Jurassic - specifically, the Permo-Triassic recovery, mid-Norian crisis, Norian-Rhaetian boundary, end-Triassic Mass Extinction (ETE), Sinemurian Liasidium event, Pliensbachian-Toarcian boundary, and Jenkyns turnover events?
• 2) What is the full spectrum of evolving secular frequencies of the Solar System from geochronologic data in CPCP-2 in conjunction with the JET, Junggar Basin and other records?
• 3) How did continental ecosystems track the periods of relatively stable environmental variability in contrast to the extreme events of the Triassic-Early Jurassic?
• 4) How did the climate, geographic, and tectonic changes through the early Mesozoic structure the hydro- and geogenic contaminant stratigraphy of the Colorado Plateau, how does present deep biosphere interact with this stratigraphy and history, and how can we use this science to help remediate the consequent water crisis, specifically using the new DCMD water filtration system?

Mass Extinction, Paleoclimate, Solar System Dynamics, Water Resources

Latitude: 35.81957, Longitude: -111.00838