THE UTAH CORE RESEARCH CENTER: UTAH'S LARGEST PUBLICLY AVAILABLE COLLECTION OF GEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS, WELL CORE AND DATA FOR THESIS WORK, ACADEMIC RESEARCH, WORKSHOPS AND CLASSROOM STUDIES

The Utah Core Research Center (UCRC) offers students, educators, and other researchers access to Utah's most comprehensive collection of geological specimens for thesis and academic research, workshops, and classroom studies. The UCRC collection is ideally suited to supply data for projects including facies, diagenetic, source-rock and biomarker studies, and oil and gas reservoir characterization investigations.

UCRC holdings include subsurface samples from more then 3500 wells, core from more then 700 wells, samples from major tar sand and oil shale deposits, and type oils from all the producing formations in the state. The UCRC collection also contains representative samples from Utah's coal mines, metallic mineral deposits, industrial rocks and minerals, geothermal wells, and surface stratigraphic sections. Sediment and brine samples from Great Salt Lake are also available for study.

The UCRC is fortunate to have stratigraphic research core collections ideally suited for workshop and classroom studies. Highlights include the remarkably detailed fluvial-dominated deltaic sands of the Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone of east-central Utah and the shallow-shelf carbonates of the Pennsylvanian Paradox Formation of southeastern Utah.

The UCRC has upgraded and replaced scientific equipment to provide technical support for research activities using the geologic collection. Workstations supply high-resolution digital and film-based sample imaging, and petrographic and binocular microscopes. Core slabbing, core plugging, sample crushing, sifting, and preparation equipment are also available. Analytical data, geophysical logs, and reports by donors may also be available. Destructive testing is allowed with restrictions and advanced permission.

The UCRC is organized to quickly adapt to a variety of client needs such as workshops, classrooms, large-scale sampling, digital imaging, and other research programs.