Publications

In 2016, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior requested that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) produce a publicly available and annually updated database of estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the extraction and use of fossil fuels from Federal lands. The first report in this series included emissions estimates from 2005 to 2014 and were reported for 29...

Depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs are subsurface geological structures capable of sequestering vast quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as storing other energy gases for later usage, such as natural gas, and potentially hydrogen (H2). Here we outline a methodology to quantify multi-gas storage resources in depleted conventional gas reservoirs for usage in assessments by the United...

Fluid inclusion microthermometry and Raman spectroscopy of fluid inclusions in quartz veins from the Pennsylvanian rocks of the Anthracite belt, eastern Pennsylvania support a deep burial model of coalification in favor of focused orogenic hot fluid flow. High-temperature (250 to 255 °C) trapping of CH4 ± CO2 saturated aqueous fluids and CH4 ± CO2 inclusions indicate fluid trapping at...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 16 million barrels of oil and 348 billion cubic feet of gas in conventional reservoirs of the Norphlet Formation in the U.S. Gulf Coast region.

Methane has a short atmospheric lifetime compared to carbon dioxide (CO2), ∼decade versus ∼centuries, but it has a much higher global warming potential (GWP), highlighting how reducing methane emissions can slow the rate of climate change. When considering the contribution of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to current global warming (2010–2019) relative to the industrial revolution (1850...

Produced water (i.e., a mixture of returned injection fluids and geologic formation brines) represents the largest volumetric waste stream associated with petroleum production in the United States. As such, produced water has been the focus of intense study with emphasis on understanding the geologic origin of the fluids, environmental impacts of unintended or intentional release...

Detrital zircon data from modern barrier island and estuarine environments in the Outer Banks (Atlantic Coast, USA) were statistically compared to sands from nearby rivers to assist in determining source-to-sink pathways. Fluvial samples, collected from near the Fall Line contact between the Appalachian Orogen and sediments of the coastal plain, all have age unique distributions, making...

Coal fly ash is a potential resource of valuable elements, such as rare earth elements (REEs), which are retained and concentrated upon combustion. Understanding REE occurrence within fly ash is vital to developing recovery methods. Some of the highest REE contents occur in fly ash derived from U.S. Appalachian Basin coals, and coals influenced by input volcanic ash are especially...

Well integrity monitoring has always been a critical component of subsurface oil and gas operations. Distributed fiber-optic sensing is an emerging technology that shows great promise for monitoring processes, both in boreholes and in other settings. In this study, we present a case study of using distributed temperature sensing (DTS) technology to monitor a cemented and plugged well in...

The Shublik Formation (Middle to Upper Triassic) is a heterogeneous unit that is a major hydrocarbon source rock in northern Alaska and the largest known Triassic phosphate accumulation in the world. This formation, which occurs in the subsurface and crops out within the Arctic Alaska basin, was deposited on a gently sloping ramp along the northwestern Laurentian margin. In this study...

Organic petrology developed from coal petrology, and, in the 1960s, it began to be applied to the study of dispersed organic matter (DOM) in sedimentary rocks other than coal. Over the last few decades, the petrology of DOM has been used to characterize organic matter in sedimentary basins with an emphasis on fossil fuel resource exploration. Today, due to the global research shift on...

Executive Summary Climate is the primary driver of environmental change and is a key consideration in defining science priorities conducted across all mission areas in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Recognizing the importance of climate change to its future research agenda, the USGS’s Climate Science Steering Committee requested the development of a Climate Science Plan to identify...