Data

In response to Executive Order 13817 of December 20, 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) coordinated with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to identify 35 nonfuel minerals or mineral materials considered critical to the economic and national security of the United States (U.S.) (https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2018/1021/ofr20181021.pdf). Acquiring information on possible domestic sources of these c

Solid bitumen is a petrographically-defined secondary organic matter residue produced during petroleum generation and subsequent oil transformation. The presence of solid bitumen impacts many shale reservoir properties including porosity, permeability, and hydrocarbon generation and storage, amongst others. Furthermore, solid bitumen reflectance is an important parameter for assessing the thermal

Steelmaking slag from near Chicago, USA, may be a viable option for treating phosphate-rich or acidic waters. Iron and steel slags from legacy and modern operations in the Chicago-Gary area of Illinois and Indiana, USA, are predominantly composed of Ca, Fe, and Si, with generally lesser amounts of Al, Mg, and Mn. Simulated weathering tests suggest that potentially deleterious elements such as Cr a

The Middle-Upper Triassic Shublik Formation is the main source rock for Arctic Alaska oil and gas accumulations, including the supergiant Prudhoe Bay field. A revised stratigraphic framework recently has been developed in outcrop for the Shublik and related strata that delineates three large-scale stratigraphic units: 1) the lower clastic (LC) unit, 2) the middle carbonate-chert (MCC) unit, and 3)

Several canals in southern Florida run from Lake Okeechobee through the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) and feed water to the northern Everglades. Agricultural and water-management practices affect the water quality of these canals. Fertilizers added in the EAA flow into the canals and are transported to treatment areas which remove much of the phosphorous in the water, but are not as effective

The Colorado Plateau is associated with several different commercial sources of natural CO2 and other non-hydrocarbon gases, such as noble gases. Twenty-five different hot springs, warm springs, cold springs, and/or rivers across the Utah region of the Colorado Plateau were sampled for microbial biomass. These different locations were associated with some concentration of dissolved or effervesci

Low biomass waters provide a unique challenge in the field of microbial ecology. It is difficult to determine, when biomass concentrations are extremely low, whether or not the sequencing data received are of good quality and representative of the waters sampled. Fifty-nine samples including 8 blanks were collected from a low biomass hydraulically fractured well producing from the Niobrara Shale i

This worksheet displays the results of mineral abundance estimates based on Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses of mill tailings and other ore processing materials from worldwide localities. Data are also provided to show variation in mineral abundance estimates for subsplits in individual samples. Samples were analyzed using a PANalytical X'Pert Pro diffractometer using Cu rad

Waters co-produced during petroleum extraction are the largest waste stream from oil and gas development. Reuse or disposal of these waters is difficult due both to their high salinities, which can greatly exceed 35 g/L (seawater equivalent), and also the sheer volume of wastewater generated, which is estimated at nearly 900 billion gallons per year across the United States. Beyond disposal concer

The organic composition of produced waters (flowback and formation waters) from the Bakken Formation and the Three Forks Formation in the Williston Basin, North Dakota were examined in this study in order to aid in the remediation of surface contamination due to spills during transport and help develop treatment methods for recycling. Twelve produced water samples were collected from wells in the

The U.S. Geological Survey assessed undiscovered unconventional hydrocarbon resources reservoired in the Upper Cretaceous Tuscaloosa marine shale (TMS) of southern Mississippi and adjacent Louisiana in 2018. As part of the assessment, oil- source rock correlations were examined in the study area where operators produce light (38-45 degrees API), sweet oil from horizontal, hydraulically-fractured w

Fractionation of petroleum during migration through sedimentary rock matrices has been observed across lengths of meters to kilometers. Selective adsorption of specific chemical moieties at mineral surfaces and/or the phase behavior of petroleum during pressure changes are typically invoked to explain this behavior. Given the current emphasis on unconventional (continuous) resources, there is a ne