Publications

From May 2008 to September 2009, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collected data from more than 660 gravity stations, 100 line-km of truck-towed magnetometer traverses, and 260 physical-property sites in the vicinity of Blue Mountain and Pumpernickel Valley, northern Nevada (fig. 1). Gravity, magnetic, and physical-property data were collected to study regional crustal structures as an...

A rich chiton assemblage consisting of more than 15,000 valves (shell plates) was collected by George P. Kanakoff (1897–1973) from Pliocene exposures of the San Diego Formation just north of the U.S./Mexican border. The assemblage includes 16 extant species, three extinct species (Callistochiton sphaerae n. sp., Lepidozona kanakoffi n. sp., and Amicula solivaga n. sp.), and three...

Detailed and reconnaissance field mapping and the results of geochemical and mineralogical analyses of outcrop samples indicate that the Devonian shales of the Broadtop Synclinorium from central Virginia to southern Pennsylvania have an organic content sufficiently high and a thermal maturity sufficiently moderate to be considered for a shale gas play. The organically rich Middle...

The Cook Inlet-Susitna region of south-central Alaska contains large quantities of gas-bearing coal of Tertiary age. The U.S. Geological Survey in 2011 completed an assessment of undiscovered, technically recoverable coal-bed gas resources underlying the Cook Inlet-Susitna region based on the total petroleum system (TPS) concept. The Cook Inlet Coal-Bed Gas TPS covers about 9,600,000...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated means of 86 billion barrels of oil and 336 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas resources in the Arabian Peninsula and Zagros Fold Belt. The USGS assessed the potential for undiscovered conventional oil and gas accumulations within the Arabian Peninsula and Zagros Fold Belt as part of the USGS...

Demand for natural gas is increasing more rapidly than anticipated in Far East markets because (1) China has modified its policies in order to increase reliance on gas, in part to mitigate the growth in its coal consumption (which now stand at almost half of world coal production), (2) Japan has announced its intention to eventually shutdown its nuclear power industry, and (3) India...

We present new results and interpretations of the electricalanisotropy and reservoir architecture in gashydrate-bearingsands using logging data collected during the Gulf of MexicoGasHydrate Joint Industry Project Leg II. We focus specifically on sandreservoirs in Hole Alaminos Canyon 21 A (AC21-A), Hole Green Canyon 955 H (GC955-H) and Hole Walker Ridge 313 H (WR313-H). Using a new...

The Organic Petrology Laboratory (OPL) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Eastern Energy Resources Science Center in Reston, Virginia, contains several thousand processed coal sample materials that were loosely organized in laboratory drawers for the past several decades. The majority of these were prepared as 1-inch-diameter particulate coal pellets (more than 6,000 pellets; one...

The U.S. Geological Survey assessed unconventional oil and gas resources of the Upper Ordovician Utica Shale and adjacent units in the Appalachian Basin Province. The assessment covers parts of Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The geologic concept is that black shale of the Utica Shale and adjacent units generated hydrocarbons from Type II organic...

The northernGulf of Mexico (GoM) has long been a focus area for the study of gashydrates. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, work focused on massive gashydrates deposits that were found to form at and near the seafloor in association with hydrocarbon seeps. However, as global scientific and industrial interest in assessment of the drilling hazards and resource implications of gashydrate...

To assess how elements leach from several types of coal combustion products (CCPs) and to better understand possible risks from CCP use or disposal, coal ashes were sampled from two bituminous-coal-fired power plants. One plant located in Ohio burns high-sulfur (about 3.9%) Upper Pennsylvanian Pittsburgh coal from the Monongahela Group of the Central Appalachian Basin; the other in New...

Organic petrology developed as coal petrology at the beginning of the 20th century dedicated mainly to the study of coals because of their utilization in industry. Coal petrology was then considered a branch of coal science. Later, with the development of specialized nomenclature, classification of coal components, and the standardization and improvement of analytical (microscopical)...