Publications

Regional variations in thickness and facies of clastic sediments are controlled by geographic location within a foreland basin. Preservation of facies is dependent on the original accommodation space available during deposition and ultimately by tectonic modification of the foreland in its postthrusting stages. The preservation of facies within the foreland basin and during the...

The recent reversal of the declining trend of US oil production is largely due to production from unconventional or "continuous" low-permeability reservoirs by use of multistage hydraulic fracturing of horizontal legs of exploration wells. The US currently produces about 7.4 million bo/d, and the increasing trend in domestic production has led to speculation that the US could become...

Natural resource planning at all scales demands methods for assessing the impacts of resource development and use, and in particular it requires standardized methods that yield robust and unbiased results. Building from existing probabilistic methods for assessing the volumes of energy and mineral resources, we provide an algorithm for consistent, reproducible, quantitative assessment of...

In 1995, U.S. Geological Survey made the first systematic assessment of the volume of natural gas stored in the hydrate accumulations of the United States. That study, along with numerous other studies, has shown that the amount of gas stored as methane hydrates in the world greatly exceeds the volume of known conventional gas resources. However, gas hydrates represent both a scientific...

Seismic refraction methods are used in environmental and engineering studies to image the shallow subsurface. We present a blind test of inversion and tomographic refraction analysis methods using a synthetic first-arrival-time dataset that was made available to the community in 2010. The data are realistic in terms of the near-surface velocity model, shot-receiver geometry and the data...

This report provides information pertaining to the 2012 U.S. Geological Survey assessment of undiscovered, technically recoverable conventional oil and gas resources of the world, exclusive of the United States. Some of the results were previously published, mostly in USGS fact sheet series.

The petroleum system concept was first applied in 1974 (Dow/Williams) to identify three oil systems in the Williston Basin, and recent studies have expanded the number to at least nine. This paper reviews the petroleum geochemistry, oil-oil, and oil-source correlations of the oil systems of the Williston Basin, providing a new perspective and some new findings. Petroleum systems with a...

Executive Summary The economy, national security, and standard of living of the United States depend heavily on adequate and reliable supplies of energy and mineral resources. Based on population and consumption trends, the Nation’s use of energy and minerals can be expected to grow, driving the demand for ever broader scientific understanding of resource formation, location, and...

The presence of strong surface-wave noise in surface microseismic data may decrease the utility of these data. We implement a technique, based on the distinct characteristics that microseismic signal and noise show in the τ‐p domain, to suppress surface-wave noise in microseismic data. Because most microseismic source mechanisms are deviatoric, preprocessing is necessary to correct for...

This study updates a stratigraphic cross section published as plate 2 in Kirschbaum and Hettinger (2004) Digital Data Series 69-G (http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-g/). The datum is a marine/tidal ravinement surface within the Cozzette Sandstone Member of the Iles Formation and the Thompson Canyon Sandstone and Sulphur Canyon Sandstone Beds of the Neslen Formation. One of the...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has created a comprehensive geopressure-gradient model of the regional pressure system spanning the onshore and offshore portions of the Gulf of Mexico, USA. The model was used to generate ten maps: five contour maps (Maps 1A - 5A) characterize the depth to the surface defined by the first occurrence of isopressure-gradients ranging from 0.60 psi/ft to 1...

Characterization of the regional pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico basin is critical for assessing the occurrence of undiscovered petroleum resources, evaluating areas with potential pressure-related production, identifying potential pressure-related geohazard issues, evaluating hydrocarbon reservoir-seal integrity, and determining the feasibility of geological sequestration and long...