Publications

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) national assessment of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage capacity evaluated 192 saline Storage Assessment Units (SAUs) in 33 U.S. onshore sedimentary basins that may be utilized for CO2 storage (see USGS Circular 1386). Similar to many other available models, volumetric analysis was utilized to estimate the initial CO2injection and storage capacity of these...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessed the potential for undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Lena-Anabar Basin Province as part of its Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal program. The province is in the Russian High Arctic and is located between the Laptev Sea and the Siberian craton. Three assessment units (AUs) were defined for this study—the Lena-Anabar Basin AU, the Lena...

The Mezen’ Basin Province is situated along the White and Barents Seas in the northeastern part of the Russian Federation. Only a small area of the province, part of one graben, extends slightly north of the Arctic Circle onto the Kanin-Kola monocline, where it converges with the Timan-Varanger deformed belt and the Fennoscandian shield. The main petroleum potential in the Mezen’ Basin...

Oil producers have been using enhanced oil recovery methods, including (1) thermal recovery for heavy oil and (2) carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) for medium or light oil, to maximize oil recovery from existing reservoirs. The CO2-EOR method is widely used for recovering additional oil after waterflood, which leaves behind a large volume of oil in the reservoir. Completing...

This short course was prepared at the request of Servicio Geológico Colombiano (SGC) as a module for staff training. Prior to the short course, the SGC expressed interest in receiving training in (1) geochemistry and quality of coal; (2) geochemistry of trace elements in coal; (3) mercury and halogens in coal; (4) characterization and cycling of atmospheric mercury; (5) mercury, trace...

Stratigraphic layered pore-filling gas hydrates are identified above the bottom simulating reflector (BSR) using the well log and core data acquired at Sites W11 and W17 during the third gas hydrate drilling expedition conducted by China's Geological Survey/Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey (GMGS3) in the South China Sea. A seismic profile near Site W17, reveal the presence of two BSRs...

Raman spectroscopy has recently received attention as a means to estimate thermal maturity of organic matter in petroleum generating source rocks to complement more traditional approaches such as vitrinite reflectance and programmed pyrolysis. While many studies have observed positive correlations between source rock thermal maturity and Raman spectral parameters, little attention has...

Raman spectroscopy was studied as a thermal maturity probe in a series of Upper Devonian Ohio Shale samples from the Appalachian Basin spanning from immature to dry gas conditions. Raman spectroscopy also was applied to samples spanning a similar thermal range created from 72-h hydrous pyrolysis (HP) experiments of the Ohio Shale at temperatures from 300 to 360 °C and isothermal HP...

In 2017, disruptions in the global supply of helium reminded consumers, distributors, and policy makers that the global helium supply chain lacks flexibility, and that attempts to increase production from the U.S. Federal Helium Reserve (the FHR) may not be able to compensate for the loss of one of the few major producers in the world. Issues with U.S. and global markets for helium...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 793 billion cubic feet of gas in the Putumayo-Oriente-Marañón Basin Province of Colombia, Ecuador, and Perú.