The Colorado Plateau Coring Project (CPCP) aims to study a 100-million-year history of the Colorado Plateau by recovering deep rock cores. One critical purpose is to understand how natural contaminants like uranium, arsenic, lithium, salts, and hydrocarbons got into the rocks and how they enter today’s water supplies. We are exploring four main issues: how ancient environmental changes led to the initial buildup of these substances; how these contaminants were concentrated and moved through the rocks over millions of years by inorganic and ancient microbial processes; how current microbes in the rocks affect the release of these contaminants into groundwater; and how we might remove these contaminants efficiently and affordably.

In its first phase (2013–2016), scientific cores from Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona documented the distribution of the contaminants in the rock layers. We now propose drilling four more cores in Arizona and Utah spanning much more time and more geography. The new coreholes will also be used as wells to test new water purification methods. The overall goal is to better predict where harmful natural contaminants could appear and to find effective ways to clean them up, advancing hydrogeology and serving the needs of local communities.