Publications

This study presents new optical petrography and electron microscopy data, interpreted in the context of previously published petrophysical, geochemical, and mineralogical data, to further characterize the Tuscaloosa marine shale (TMS) as an unconventional reservoir in southwestern Mississippi. The basal high resistivity zone has a higher proportion of Type II sedimentary organic matter...

Due to advances in EDS technology, electron microscopy techniques have become an important tool to determine the relative abundance of mineral phases. However, few studies have directly compared EDS X‐ray mineralogy with traditional techniques for assessing bulk mineralogy and elemental composition. We show that analysing a limited area (~ 0.5–3.2 mm2) of fine‐grained metal extraction...

The lower Eagle Ford Group (LEFG) is one of the most productive continuous hydrocarbon plays in the United States but few associated produced waters data and minimal interpretation have been published. This effort focuses on results from compositional and isotopic data from 39 produced water samples collected from horizontal wells producing from the LEFG in south central Texas. The depth...

This report presents a novel conceptual framework and approach for conducting a geologically based environmental assessment, or geoenvironmental assessment, of undiscovered uranium resources within an area likely to contain uranium deposits. The framework is based on a source-to-receptor model that prioritizes the most likely contaminant sources, contaminant pathways, and affected...

This paper outlines the development and demonstration of a new tool, TOUGH2–ChemPlugin (T2CPI) for predicting rock–water–CO2 interaction following injection of supercritical CO2 into a heterogeneous carbonate system. Specifically, modeling capabilities of TOUGH2, which examines multiphase flow and supercritical CO2 behavior, were combined with the geochemical modeling capabilities of The

Microscopic 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 reservoir properties including porosity, permeability, and hydrocarbon generation and storage, among others. Furthermore, solid bitumen reflectance is an important parameter for...

Recently reported detrital zircon (DZ) data help to associate the Paleogene strata of the Gulf of Mexico region to various provenance areas. By far, recent work has emphasised upper Paleocene-lower Eocene and upper Oligocene strata that were deposited during the two episodes of the highest sediment supply in the Paleogene. The data reveal a dynamic drainage history, including (1) initial...

Studies of naturally occurring subsurface carbon dioxide (CO2) accumulations can provide useful information for potential CO2 injection projects; however, the microbial communities and formation water geochemistry of most reservoirs are understudied. Formation water and microbial biomass were sampled at four CO2-rich reservoir sites: two within Bravo Dome, a commercial CO2 field in New...

Coalbed methane (CBM) has emerged as a clean energy resource in the global energy mix, especially in countries such as Australia, China, India and the USA. The economical and successful development of CBM requires a thorough evaluation and optimization of well placement prior to field-scale exploitation. This paper presents a two-stage, step-wise optimization framework to obtain the...

For sample mounting, organic petrology laboratories typically use cold-setting epoxy-resin (e.g., 40 °C, used by Oklahoma Geological Survey, OGS) or heat-setting thermoplastic (e.g., 180 °C, used by U.S. Geological Survey, USGS). Previous workers have suggested a systematic huminite/vitrinite reflectance (VRo) increase was associated with the thermoplastic preparation process, relative...

Fluorescence spectroscopy via confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) was used to analyze ancient sedimentary organic matter, including Tasmanites microfossils in Devonian shale and Gloecapsomorpha prisca (G. prisca) in Ordovician kukersite from North American basins. We examined fluorescence emission as a function of excitation laser wavelength, sample orientation, and with respect to...

In recent years, geologists and petroleum engineers have struggled to clearly identify the mechanisms that drive productivity in horizontal, hydraulically-fractured oil wells producing from the middle member of the Bakken formation. This paper fills a gap in the literature by showing how this play’s heterogeneity affects factors that drive well productivity. It is important because...