USGS CORE RESEARCH CENTER: A GATEWAY TO SUBTERRANEAN DISCOVERY FOR GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates a repository that provides public access to a vast collection of scientifically valuable rock cores and drill cuttings. Since its establishment in 1974, the USGS Core Research Center (CRC), located in Denver, Colorado, has amassed a collection of rock cores from more than 9,000 wells, and cuttings from more than 52,000 wells.

The CRC’s collection of core and cuttings were collected from 33 states, with most of the materials having originated in the Rocky Mountain region and adjacent states. Annually, about 1,800 researchers from industry, academia, the USGS, and other government agencies use the climate-controlled examination rooms at the CRC to find energy and mineral reserves, information for theses and dissertations, and data to determine and verify resource assessments.

Innovations in petroleum extraction have enabled previously unproductive geologic formations to yield vast amounts of oil and gas, returning the U.S. to rank as a major supplier of petroleum products. Traditional geologic knowledge, derived from the physical rock materials housed at the CRC, paired with new extraction methods, have unlocked numerous productive deposits. Although most frequently used for oil and gas exploration, the CRC collections are also used for evaluating water resources, mineral reconnaissance, isotopic analyses for paleoclimate studies, and other innovative research. CRC staff provide the requested cores or cuttings to scheduled CRC visitors and make core photos, analysis data, and thin section images available for download from the CRC website.

The CRC collaborates with the USGS National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program (NGGDPP), which established the National Digital Catalog (NDC), to catalog and make discoverable geoscientific data and physical collections managed by the USGS and state agencies. When the current overhaul is finished, the NDC will enable issue of International Geo Sample Numbers (IGSN) and facilitate discovery of samples and data from multiple sources.