Publications

This publication provides research results and related data in support of the U.S. Geological Survey assessment of the undiscovered oil and gas resource potential of the Anadarko Basin Province of western Oklahoma and Kansas, northern Texas, and southeastern Colorado. This province area includes the Las Animas arch of southeastern Colorado, part of the Palo Duro Basin of Texas, and the...

Standards for the public disclosure of mineral resources and reserves do not require the use of any specific methodology when it comes to estimating the reliability of the resources. Unbeknownst to most intended recipients of resource appraisals, such freedom commonly results in subjective opinions or estimations based on suboptimal approaches, such as use of distance methods. This...

Mountaintop removal mining (MTM) is a widely used approach to surface coal mining in the US Appalachian region whereby large volumes of coal overburden are excavated using explosives, removed, and transferred to nearby drainages below MTM operations. To investigate the air quality impact of MTM, the geochemical characteristics of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) from five surface...

This report presents a digital map of coalbed-gas resource assessments in the United States as part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Assessment of Oil and Gas Project. Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the USGS quantitatively estimated potential volumes of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas resources within coalbed-gas assessment units (AUs)...

This series of five maps characterizes the subsurface pressure system of southern Louisiana, including the associated State and Federal waters. These maps were generated using the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) comprehensive geopressure-gradient model (Burke et al., 2012b, 2013) that delineates the regional pressure system spanning the onshore and offshore Gulf of Mexico basin, USA...

Potash is mined worldwide to provide potassium, an essential nutrient for food crops. Evaporite-hosted potash deposits are the largest source of salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form, including potassium chloride, potassium-magnesium chloride, potassium sulfate, and potassium nitrate. Thick sections of evaporitic salt that form laterally continuous strata in sedimentary...

Apart from mercury itself, coal rank and halogen content are among the most important factors inherent in coal that determine the proportion of mercury captured by conventional controls during coal combustion. This chapter reviews how mercury in coal occurs, gives available concentration data for mercury in U.S. and international commercial coals, and provides an overview of the natural...

In support of a hydrogeologic study of the groundwater resources on Fort Irwin, we have combined new gravity data with preexisting measurements to produce an isostatic residual gravity map, which we then separated into two components reflecting (1) the density distribution in the pre-Cenozoic basement complex and (2) the distribution of low-density Cenozoic volcanic and sedimentary...

Geologic and geophysical investigations in the vicinity of Fort Irwin National Training Center, California, have been completed in support of groundwater investigations, and are presented in eight chapters of this report. A generalized surficial geologic map along with field and borehole investigations conducted during 2010–11 provide a lithostratigraphic and structural framework for the...

The geology and landscape of the Fort Irwin area, typical of many parts of the Mojave Desert, consist of rugged mountains separated by broad alluviated valleys that form the main coarse-resolution features of the geologic map. Crystalline and sedimentary rocks, Mesozoic and older in age, form most of the mountains with lesser accumulations of Miocene sedimentary and volcanic rocks. In...

Aeromagnetic data help provide the underpinnings of a hydrogeologic framework for Fort Irwin by locating inferred structural features or grain that influence groundwater flow. Magnetization boundaries defined by horizontal-gradient analyses coincide locally with Cenozoic faults and can be used to extend these faults beneath cover. These boundaries also highlight the structural grain...

Reconnaissance field visits and rock sampling were conducted at eight geologically selected locations within Mesozoic rocks on the eastern flank of the Rutbah Uplift, Anbar Province, western Iraq, in an attempt to determine if these rocks have been affected by a Mississippi Valley-Type (MVT) lead-zinc mineralizing system. Samples subsequently were studied by carbonate mineral staining...