In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey published an assessment of technically recoverable continuous oil and gas resources of the Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin, Permian Basin Province, Texas. Estimated ultimate recoveries (EURs) were calculated with production data from IHS MarkitTM using DeclinePlus software in the Harmony interface. These EURs were a major component of the...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 290 milllion barrels of shale oil and 7.9 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in the Ordovician Collingwood-Utica Shale Total Petroleum System of the Michigan Basin Province.

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...

Thermal maturity is critical to evaluate petroleum systems and to interpret biomarker results for paleoenvironmental and geobiology studies. Many thermal maturity indices were developed for marine source rocks containing type II kerogen, but their behavior in organic sulfur-rich source rocks requires more investigation. Here, we present geochemical analyses of whole and extracted rock...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 561 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Lower Silurian Shale Total Petroleum System of the Arabian Peninsula.

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 30.5 trillion cubic feet of tight gas in the Grand Erg/Ahnet Province of Algeria.

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...

Residual oil zones (ROZs) are increasingly gaining interest as potential reservoirs for carbon dioxide (CO2) storage. Here, we present a national- and regional-scale methodology for estimating prospective CO2 storage resources in residual oil zones. This methodology uses a volumetric equation that accounts for CO2 storage as a free phase in pore space and as a dissolved phase in oil and...

The organic composition of produced waters (flowback and formation waters) from the middle member of the Bakken Formation and the Three Forks Formation in the Williston Basin, North Dakota were examined to aid in the remediation of surface contamination and help develop treatment methods for produced-water recycling. Twelve produced water samples were collected from the Bakken and Three...

The Sverdrup Basin Province, an area of 515,000 square kilometers on the northern margin of North America, extends 1,300 kilometers across the Canadian Arctic Islands from near the Mackenzie Delta to northern Ellesmere Island. It consists of an intracratonic late Paleozoic to early Cenozoic rift-sag basin and a Mesozoic rift shoulder that bounds it on the north.Basin inception was...

In 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey assessed the potential for undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Franklinian Shelf Province of northern Canada and Greenland as part of the U.S. Geological Survey Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal Program. The Franklinian Shelf Province lies along the northernmost edge of the North American craton in Greenland and Canada. It encompasses a Cambrian...

The Paleoproterozoic Barney Creek Formation, which is currently interpreted as a restricted, deep marine paleoenvironment, plays a disproportionate role in our understanding of Proterozoic ocean chemistry and the rise of complex life. The Barney Creek Formation hosts several unusual biomarker features, specifically its methylhopane and carotenoid signatures. Herein, we demonstrate that...