Workshop on Integrated Scientific Coring on the Colorado Plateau: Early Mesozoic History of West Pangea; St. George, Utah; November13-16, 2007

The Colorado Plateau is THE textbook example of layered sedimentary rocks, representing the depositional history of the western Cordillera during much of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic. Over 200 years of research has demonstrated that the Early Mesozoic age portion of this classic section presents an unparalleled record of biotic, tectonic, and climatic evolution of western Pangea. However, despite its rich scientific heritage and depth and intensity of current research, there is a striking lack of temporal and paleogeographic resolution that prevents integration with the global record. We are organizing an international workshop too be held November 13-16, 2007 in St. George Utah, that will formulate a focused coring program in and off the Colorado Plateau with the goal of recovering, using core obtained from multiple localities, the complete Lower Mesozoic section in this classic area. This NSF-funded component compliments funds committed by DOSECC for this workshop. Such a modest coring project, concentrated on this time-stratigraphic interval on the Colorado Plateau, coupled with coring over the lower part this target interval off the Plateau, would provide quintessential continuous reference sections to place the regional and global events of more than 60 million years of Earth History in a precise chronostratigraphic and paleogeographic context that has the potential to revolutionize understanding of Pangean chronology, paleogeography, paleoclimate, tectonic and biotic evolution.