Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center

Organic petrology developed from coal petrology, and, in the 1960s, it began to be applied to the study of dispersed organic matter (DOM) in sedimentary rocks other than coal. Over the last few decades, the petrology of DOM has been used to characterize organic matter in sedimentary basins with an emphasis on fossil fuel resource exploration. Today, due to the global research shift on topics relat

Executive Summary Climate is the primary driver of environmental change and is a key consideration in defining science priorities conducted across all mission areas in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Recognizing the importance of climate change to its future research agenda, the USGS’s Climate Science Steering Committee requested the development of a Climate Science Plan to identify future rese

To further refine the use of solid bitumen reflectance (BRo in %) as a measurement of thermal maturity in source-rock reservoirs, we examined its relationship to other thermal proxies in the Bakken Formation. Comparisons included criteria from programmed temperature pyrolysis, gas chromatography (GC), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Thirty-two organic-rich samples from the lowe