Data

At recent technical conferences, many coal geoscientists in academia and government institutions as well as in industry organizations have expressed concern about the dwindling number of students and young staff members interested in careers in coal geoscience. To better understand what is driving these trends and to identify potential ways that the community can increase interest and

Inorganic compositions of flowback and co-produced waters from hydrocarbon extraction have been studied directly and through laboratory experiments that seek to replicate subsurface water-rock interaction. Here a broad analysis is made of compositions from the U.S. Geological Survey Produced Waters Database (v2.3) and leachates (water, hydrochloric acid, artificial brine) for 12 energy...

This data release contains programmed pyrolysis, organic petrographic (reflectance), and semiquantitative X-ray diffraction mineralogy data for subsurface coal and shale samples from around the world. Samples were subjected to hydrous or anhydrous pyrolysis experiments at varying temperatures and the resulting residues were analyzed via programmed pyrolysis and reflectance to document...

Citation Note: These data were collected as part of a research study published in Environmental Science and Technology. Please reference the following paper when citing these data. Blondes, M.S., Shelton, J.L., Engle, M.A., Trembly, J.P., Doolan, C.A., Jubb, A.M., Chenault, J.M., Rowan, E.L., Haefner, R.J., and Mailot, B.E., 2020, Utica Shale Play Oil and Gas Brines: Geochemistry and...

This study describes the application of organic petrology techniques to quantify the amount of coal and carbonaceous combustion by-products (i.e., coke, coal tar/pitch, cenospheres) in sediments taken from the Kinnickinnic River adjacent to the former site of the Milwaukee Solvay Coke and Gas Company. The site produced metallurgical coke and coal-gasification by-products from 1902-1983...

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

The Middle-Upper Triassic Shublik Formation is the main source rock for Arctic Alaska oil and gas accumulations, including the supergiant Prudhoe Bay field. A revised stratigraphic framework recently has been developed in outcrop for the Shublik and related strata that delineates three large-scale stratigraphic units: 1) the lower clastic (LC) unit, 2) the middle carbonate-chert (MCC)...

Several canals in southern Florida run from Lake Okeechobee through the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) and feed water to the northern Everglades. Agricultural and water-management practices affect the water quality of these canals. Fertilizers added in the EAA flow into the canals and are transported to treatment areas which remove much of the phosphorous in the water, but are not as...

The Colorado Plateau is associated with several different commercial sources of natural CO2 and other non-hydrocarbon gases, such as noble gases. Twenty-five different hot springs, warm springs, cold springs, and/or rivers across the Utah region of the Colorado Plateau were sampled for microbial biomass. These different locations were associated with some concentration of dissolved or

Low biomass waters provide a unique challenge in the field of microbial ecology. It is difficult to determine, when biomass concentrations are extremely low, whether or not the sequencing data received are of good quality and representative of the waters sampled. Fifty-nine samples including 8 blanks were collected from a low biomass hydraulically fractured well producing from the...

Waters co-produced during petroleum extraction are the largest waste stream from oil and gas development. Reuse or disposal of these waters is difficult due both to their high salinities, which can greatly exceed 35 g/L (seawater equivalent), and also the sheer volume of wastewater generated, which is estimated at nearly 900 billion gallons per year across the United States. Beyond...

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