Data

Coal and coal byproducts may be economically important resources if enriched in critical minerals such as rare earth elements. The organic carbon they contain could be converted to gas using stimulated microbial methanogenesis. In this study, samples were collected from two underground mine sites in the bituminous region of southwest Pennsylvania to assess the potential for these uses...

The Marcellus Shale Energy and Environmental Laboratory (MSEEL) field site in Morgantown, WV was established by West Virginia University in order to increase understanding of factors that affect resource recovery and environmental impacts from unconventional oil and gas development. The site, which is located in the Morgantown Industrial Park (MIP) adjacent to the Monongahela River...

The Permian Basin, straddling New Mexico and Texas, is one of the most productive oil and gas (OG) provinces in the United States. OG production yields large volumes of wastewater that contain elevated concentrations of major ions including salts (also referred to as brines), and trace organic and inorganic constituents. These OG wastewaters pose unknown environmental health risks...

The Mofete and San Vito geothermal fields, located west of Naples, Italy, are part of the Campi Flegrei volcanic complex. A joint venture in the 1970s between AGIP and ENEL, the Italian National electric and petroleum utilities, respectively, drilled exploratory wells to a depth of ~3000 m in an attempt to locate high-enthalpy fluids for potential power production. Drill core samples...

The dataset consists of geochemical and isotopic data from fine-grained sediments and glendonite crystals collected at Carter Creek on the North Slope of Alaska. Total Organic Carbon (TOC) values in the measured section were found to range between 0.5 and 3.5%, with a shift towards lower values in the uppermost 5 m of the section. Stable isotopes (13C) in organic matter were relatively...

High-resolution scanning electron microscopy (SEM) visualization of sedimentary organic matter (SOM) is widely utilized in the geosciences for evaluation of microscale rock properties relevant to depositional environment, diagenesis, and the processes of fluid generation, transport, and storage. However, despite thousands of studies which have incorporated SEM approaches, the inability...

Petroleum within unconventional source-rock reservoirs is hosted in organic matter and mineral pore space as well as in voids and microfractures. Recent work has shown that for source-rock reservoirs in the dry gas window, significant portions of methane (CH4), the main component of petroleum at elevated maturities, can be stored within fine organic matter porosity. However, within...

Research examining organic-matter hosted porosity has significantly increased during the last ten years due to greater focus on understanding hydrocarbon migration and storage in source-rock reservoirs, and technological advances in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) capabilities. The examination of nanometer-scale organic-matter hosted porosity by SEM requires the preparation of...

A suite of slate samples collected along a 2 km transect crossing the Lishan Fault in central Taiwan were evaluated to assess the role of ductile strain energy in natural graphitization at greenschist facies metamorphic conditions. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging documents phyllosilicate and quartz replacement textures consistent cleavage development via dissolution...

To refine the use of graptolite and solid bitumen properties as thermal proxies at overmature conditions, we evaluated their evolution via Raman and infrared spectroscopies, reflectance, and geochemical screening in high-temperature hydrous and anhydrous experiments in comparison to naturally matured samples. Naturally matured samples included four overmature Wufeng-Longmaxi marine...

This data release contains reflectance measurements for eight samples submitted to the USGS Organic Petrology Laboratory in Reston. Samples include two artificial rock samples made from cement with organic matter added (samples 001-002), a coal and shale sample (samples 003-004, respectively), and hydrous pyrolysis residues for samples 001-004. The hydrous pyrolysis experiments were...

The Middle Pennsylvanian (Bolsovian) Leatherwood coal in central eastern Kentucky is a moderately thick (up to >1.6 m in the sites examined in this study) coal bed that has been one of the major sources of electricity in the region. To document and understand the organic petrology and inorganic chemistry of the Leatherwood coal, geologists from the University of Kentucky Center for...