Publications

Using a performance-based geologic assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a technically recoverable mean volume of 6.1 trillion cubic feet of potential shale gas in the Bombay, Cauvery, and Krishna-Godavari Provinces of India.

The emerging global focus on the oil and gas potential of the Arctic underscores the importance of understanding petroleum systems with limited data. Geohistory modeling of Arctic Alaska (including the Chukchi shelf) and the southern Canada basin indicates that regional patterns of thermal maturity and timing of petroleum generation reflect geologic processes associated with rift-opening...

No abstract available.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) held a workshop titled “CO2 Sequestration in Unconventional Reservoirs” at the National Conservation Training Center, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, USA, on March 28th – 29th, 2012. Currently the USGS National Geologic Carbon Sequestration Assessment estimates potential subsurface storage volumes only in the existing pore spaces of sandstones, limestones...

Evaluation of resources such as tight sands and gas shales requires the formulation of assessment models that are different from those used for the inference of conventional resources. Formulations in present use are based in classical statistics that ignore the partly organized and partly random geographical variation of attributes related to the occurrence of hydrocarbons. This paper...

A series of methane (CH4) adsorption experiments on bulk organic rich shales and their isolated kerogens were conducted at 35 °C, 50 °C and 65 °C and CH4 pressure of up to 15 MPa under dry conditions. Samples from the Eocene Green River Formation, Devonian–Mississippian Woodford Shale and Upper Cretaceous Cameo coal were studied to examine how differences in organic matter type affect...

To determine kinetic parameters of sulfate reduction by hydrocarbons (HC) without the initial presence of low valence sulfur, we carried out a series of isothermal gold-tube hydrous-pyrolysis experiments at 320, 340, and 360 °C under a constant confined pressure of 24.1 MPa. The reactants used consisted of saturated HC (sulfur-free) and CaSO4 in an aqueous solution buffered to three...

Carbonate reservoirs contain an increasingly important percentage of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves. This volume presents key recent advances in carbonate exploration and reservoir analysis. As well as a comprehensive overview of the trends in carbonate over the years, the volume focuses on four key areas: (1) emerging plays and techniques with special reference to lacustrine plays in...

Cluster analysis offers a simple visual exploratory tool for the initial investigation of regional Global Positioning System (GPS) velocity observations, which are providing increasingly precise mappings of actively deforming continental lithosphere. The deformation fields from dense regional GPS networks can often be concisely described in terms of relatively coherent blocks bounded by...

Large benthic foraminifera (LBF) were major contributors to many Paleogene carbonate platforms around the world. These photosymbiotic foraminifera lived in warm, oligotrophic, shallow waters within the photic zone. Such Paleogene families as the nummulitids, alveolinids, and orthophragminids rose to prominence in the late Paleocene, thrived in the early and middle Eocene, and declined in...

The framework of Quaternary faults in Alaska remains poorly constrained. Recent studies in the Alaska Range north of the Denali fault add significantly to the recognition of Quaternary deformation in this active orogen. Faults and folds active during the Quaternary occur over a length of ∼500 km along the northern flank of the Alaska Range, extending from Mount McKinley (Denali) eastward...

Measurements of in-situ magnetic susceptibility were compiled from mainly Precambrian crystalline basement rocks beneath the Colorado Plateau and ranges in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. The susceptibility meter used measures about 30 cm3 of rock and measures variations in the modal distribution of magnetic minerals that form a minor component volumetrically in these coarsely...