Christina DeVera is a Physical Scientist with the USGS Geology, Energy & Minerals (GEM) Science Center in Reston, VA.
Christina received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology concentrating in environmental and conservation science from George Mason University in 2010. Since joining the USGS in 2009, Christina has been a part of numerous research efforts including methanogenesis studies, the CO2 Geologic Sequestration Assessment Project, hydraulic fracturing and effects on human health, studying microbial communities in natural CO2 systems within the United States, and more recently, source rocks in North Slope Alaska. Presently, her research is focused on driving factors of microbial communities within naturally occurring CO2 systems within the United States and gamma ray spectroscopy of source rocks in North Slope Alaska. Christina is also the LIMS Coordinator and Collateral Duty Safety Program Coordinator for GEMSC.
Professional Experience
March 2016 - Present: Physical Scientist, USGS Geology, Energy & Minerals Science Center, Reston, VA
December 2009 - March 2016: Physical Science Technician, USGS Eastern Energy Resources Science Center, Reston, VA
Education and Certifications
B.S. Biology, College of Science, George Mason University, 2010
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 21
Assessment of undiscovered gas resources in Upper Devonian to Lower Cretaceous strata of the western North Slope, Alaska, 2021
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1,407 billion (1.4 trillion) cubic feet of gas in conventional accumulations in Upper Devonian to Lower Cretaceous strata of the western North Slope, Alaska.
Authors
David W. Houseknecht, Tracey J. Mercier, Christopher J. Schenk, Thomas E. Moore, William A. Rouse, Julie A. Dumoulin, William H. Craddock, Richard O. Lease, Palma J. Botterell, Margaret M. Sanders, Rebecca A. Smith, Christopher D. Connors, Christopher P. Garrity, Katherine J. Whidden, Jared T. Gooley, John W. Counts, Joshua H. Long, Christina A. DeVera
Repetitive sampling and control threshold improve 16S rRNA results from produced waters associated with hydraulically fractured shales
Sequencing microbial DNA from deep subsurface environments is complicated by a number of issues ranging from contamination to non-reproducible results. Many samples obtained from these environments - which are of great interest due to the potential to stimulate microbial methane generation - contain low biomass. Therefore, samples from these environments are difficult to study as sequencing result
Authors
Jenna L. Shelton, Elliott Barnhart, Leslie F. Ruppert, Aaron M. Jubb, Madalyn S. Blondes, Christina A. DeVera
Compositional analysis of formation water geochemistry and microbiology of commercial and carbon dioxide-rich wells in the southwestern United States
Studies of naturally occurring subsurface carbon dioxide (CO2) accumulations can provide useful information for potential CO2 injection projects; however, the microbial communities and formation water geochemistry of most reservoirs are understudied. Formation water and microbial biomass were sampled at four CO2-rich reservoir sites: two within Bravo Dome, a commercial CO2 field in New Mexico; one
Authors
Jenna L. Shelton, Robert S. Andrews, Denise M. Akob, Christina A. DeVera, Adam C. Mumford, Mark Engle, Michelle R. Plampin, Sean T. Brennan
Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Central North Slope of Alaska, 2020
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 3.6 billion barrels of oil and 8.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (associated and nonassociated) in conventional accumulations in Mississippian through Paleogene strata in the central North Slope of Alaska.
Authors
David W. Houseknecht, Katherine J. Whidden, Christopher D. Connors, Richard O. Lease, Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, William A. Rouse, Palma J. Botterell, Rebecca A. Smith, Margaret M. Sanders, William H. Craddock, Christina A. DeVera, Christopher P. Garrity, Marc L. Buursink, C. Özgen Karacan, Samuel J. Heller, Thomas E. Moore, Julie A. Dumoulin, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Katherine L. French, Cheryl A. Woodall, Ronald M. Drake, Kristen R. Marra, Thomas M. Finn, Scott A. Kinney, Chilisa M. Shorten
Carbon dioxide mineralization feasibility in the United States
Geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) storage is one of many methods for stabilizing the increasing concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. The injection of CO2 in deep subsurface sedimentary reservoirs is the most commonly discussed method; however, the potential for CO2 leakage can create long-term stability concerns. This report discusses the feasibility of an alternative form of geologic CO2 s
Authors
Madalyn S. Blondes, Matthew D. Merrill, Steven T. Anderson, Christina A. DeVera
Microbial community composition of a hydrocarbon reservoir 40 years after a CO2 enhanced oil recovery flood
Injecting CO2 into depleted oil reservoirs to extract additional crude oil is a common enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) technique. However, little is known about how in situ microbial communities may be impacted by CO2 flooding, or if any permanent microbiological changes occur after flooding has ceased. Formation water was collected from an oil field that was flooded for CO2-EOR in the 1980s, incl
Authors
Jenna L. Shelton, Robert S. Andrews, Denise M. Akob, Christina A. DeVera, Adam C. Mumford, John E. McCray, Jennifer C. McIntosh
Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources—Atlantic Coastal Plain and Eastern Mesozoic Rift Basins
This chapter presents information pertinent to the geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration potential within saline aquifers located in the Atlantic Coastal Plain and Eastern Mesozoic Rift Basins of the Eastern United States. The Atlantic Coastal Plain is underlain by a Jurassic to Quaternary succession of sedimentary strata that onlap westward onto strata of the Appalachian Piedmont physiograp
Authors
William H. Craddock, Matthew D. Merrill, Tina L. Roberts-Ashby, Sean T. Brennan, Marc L. Buursink, Ronald M. Drake, Peter D. Warwick, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Philip A. Freeman, Mayur A. Gosai, Celeste D. Lohr
Mantle and crustal gases of the Colorado Plateau: Geochemistry, sources, and migration pathways
The Colorado Plateau hosts several large accumulations of naturally occurring, non-hydrocarbon gases, including CO2, N2, and the noble gases, making it a good field location to study the fluxes of these gases within the crust and to the atmosphere. In this study, we present a compilation of 1252 published gas-composition measurements. The data reveal at least three natural gas associations in the
Authors
William H. Craddock, Madalyn S. Blondes, Christina A. DeVera, Andrew G. Hunt
Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources—Southern Rocky Mountain Basins: Chapter M in Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
The U.S. Geological Survey has completed an assessment of the potential geologic carbon dioxide storage resources in the onshore areas of the United States. To provide geological context and input data sources for the resources numbers, framework documents are being prepared for all areas that were investigated as part of the national assessment. This report, chapter M, is the geologic framework d
Authors
Matthew D. Merrill, Ronald M. Drake, Marc L. Buursink, William H. Craddock, Joseph A. East, Ernie R. Slucher, Peter D. Warwick, Sean T. Brennan, Madalyn S. Blondes, Philip A. Freeman, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Celeste D. Lohr
Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources─South Florida Basin: Chapter L in Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
This report presents five storage assessment units (SAUs) that have been identified as potentially suitable for geologic carbon dioxide sequestration within a 35,075-square-mile area that includes the entire onshore and State-water portions of the South Florida Basin. Platform-wide, thick successions of laterally extensive carbonates and evaporites deposited in highly cyclic depositional environme
Authors
Tina L. Roberts-Ashby, Sean T. Brennan, Matthew D. Merrill, Madalyn S. Blondes, P.A. Freeman, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Celeste D. Lohr
Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources: Permian and Palo Duro Basins and Bend Arch-Fort Worth Basin: Chapter K in Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
The U.S. Geological Survey has completed an assessment of the potential geologic carbon dioxide storage resource in the onshore areas of the United States. To provide geological context and input data sources for the resources numbers, framework documents are being prepared for all areas that were investigated as part of the national assessment. This report is the geologic framework document for t
Authors
Matthew D. Merrill, Ernie R. Slucher, Tina L. Roberts-Ashby, Peter D. Warwick, Madalyn S. Blondes, P.A. Freeman, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Celeste D. Lohr
Atmospheric particulate matter in proximity to mountaintop coal mines: Sources and potential environmental and human health impacts
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 mining sites i
Authors
Laura Kurth, Allan Kolker, Mark A. Engle, Nicholas J. Geboy, Michael Hendryx, William H. Orem, Michael McCawley, Lynn M. Crosby, Calin A. Tatu, Matthew S. Varonka, Christina A. DeVera
Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) Project
The ERP Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) Project is responsible for developing, implementing, and managing a LIMS architecture that expands the LIMS capabilities to support ERP laboratory needs for capturing, tracking, reporting, and managing sample and analysis data generated in ERP laboratories as well as data for samples submitted to external laboratories. The LIMS Project works...
Geologic formations and mine locations for potential CO2 mineralization
This geodatabase contains geologic unit boundaries and asbestos site locations shown in "Carbon dioxide mineralization feasibility in the United States" (Blondes and others, 2019). Data was compiled from source material at a scale range of 1:100,000 to 1:5,000,000 and is not intended for any greater detail.
Microbial Communities Associated with Hot Springs and other CO2-rich Waters, Rocky Mountain Plateau
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 effervesci
Low biomass microbiology samples collected from a hydraulically fractured well producing from the Niobrara Shale in Colorado
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 Niobrara Shale i
Microbiology of the greater Bravo Dome region
Bravo Dome is a commercial natural CO2 field that supplies the gas to depleted oil fields for enhanced oil recovery. In order to understand the distribution of CO2 across the greater Bravo Dome region, including southeastern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, and to assess the impacts of high CO2 concentrations on microbes in the subsurface, 7 samples were collected from sites associated with h
Science and Products
- Publications
Filter Total Items: 21
Assessment of undiscovered gas resources in Upper Devonian to Lower Cretaceous strata of the western North Slope, Alaska, 2021
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1,407 billion (1.4 trillion) cubic feet of gas in conventional accumulations in Upper Devonian to Lower Cretaceous strata of the western North Slope, Alaska.AuthorsDavid W. Houseknecht, Tracey J. Mercier, Christopher J. Schenk, Thomas E. Moore, William A. Rouse, Julie A. Dumoulin, William H. Craddock, Richard O. Lease, Palma J. Botterell, Margaret M. Sanders, Rebecca A. Smith, Christopher D. Connors, Christopher P. Garrity, Katherine J. Whidden, Jared T. Gooley, John W. Counts, Joshua H. Long, Christina A. DeVeraRepetitive sampling and control threshold improve 16S rRNA results from produced waters associated with hydraulically fractured shales
Sequencing microbial DNA from deep subsurface environments is complicated by a number of issues ranging from contamination to non-reproducible results. Many samples obtained from these environments - which are of great interest due to the potential to stimulate microbial methane generation - contain low biomass. Therefore, samples from these environments are difficult to study as sequencing resultAuthorsJenna L. Shelton, Elliott Barnhart, Leslie F. Ruppert, Aaron M. Jubb, Madalyn S. Blondes, Christina A. DeVeraCompositional analysis of formation water geochemistry and microbiology of commercial and carbon dioxide-rich wells in the southwestern United States
Studies of naturally occurring subsurface carbon dioxide (CO2) accumulations can provide useful information for potential CO2 injection projects; however, the microbial communities and formation water geochemistry of most reservoirs are understudied. Formation water and microbial biomass were sampled at four CO2-rich reservoir sites: two within Bravo Dome, a commercial CO2 field in New Mexico; oneAuthorsJenna L. Shelton, Robert S. Andrews, Denise M. Akob, Christina A. DeVera, Adam C. Mumford, Mark Engle, Michelle R. Plampin, Sean T. BrennanAssessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Central North Slope of Alaska, 2020
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 3.6 billion barrels of oil and 8.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (associated and nonassociated) in conventional accumulations in Mississippian through Paleogene strata in the central North Slope of Alaska.AuthorsDavid W. Houseknecht, Katherine J. Whidden, Christopher D. Connors, Richard O. Lease, Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, William A. Rouse, Palma J. Botterell, Rebecca A. Smith, Margaret M. Sanders, William H. Craddock, Christina A. DeVera, Christopher P. Garrity, Marc L. Buursink, C. Özgen Karacan, Samuel J. Heller, Thomas E. Moore, Julie A. Dumoulin, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Katherine L. French, Cheryl A. Woodall, Ronald M. Drake, Kristen R. Marra, Thomas M. Finn, Scott A. Kinney, Chilisa M. ShortenCarbon dioxide mineralization feasibility in the United States
Geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) storage is one of many methods for stabilizing the increasing concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. The injection of CO2 in deep subsurface sedimentary reservoirs is the most commonly discussed method; however, the potential for CO2 leakage can create long-term stability concerns. This report discusses the feasibility of an alternative form of geologic CO2 sAuthorsMadalyn S. Blondes, Matthew D. Merrill, Steven T. Anderson, Christina A. DeVeraMicrobial community composition of a hydrocarbon reservoir 40 years after a CO2 enhanced oil recovery flood
Injecting CO2 into depleted oil reservoirs to extract additional crude oil is a common enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) technique. However, little is known about how in situ microbial communities may be impacted by CO2 flooding, or if any permanent microbiological changes occur after flooding has ceased. Formation water was collected from an oil field that was flooded for CO2-EOR in the 1980s, inclAuthorsJenna L. Shelton, Robert S. Andrews, Denise M. Akob, Christina A. DeVera, Adam C. Mumford, John E. McCray, Jennifer C. McIntoshGeologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources—Atlantic Coastal Plain and Eastern Mesozoic Rift Basins
This chapter presents information pertinent to the geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration potential within saline aquifers located in the Atlantic Coastal Plain and Eastern Mesozoic Rift Basins of the Eastern United States. The Atlantic Coastal Plain is underlain by a Jurassic to Quaternary succession of sedimentary strata that onlap westward onto strata of the Appalachian Piedmont physiograpAuthorsWilliam H. Craddock, Matthew D. Merrill, Tina L. Roberts-Ashby, Sean T. Brennan, Marc L. Buursink, Ronald M. Drake, Peter D. Warwick, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Philip A. Freeman, Mayur A. Gosai, Celeste D. LohrMantle and crustal gases of the Colorado Plateau: Geochemistry, sources, and migration pathways
The Colorado Plateau hosts several large accumulations of naturally occurring, non-hydrocarbon gases, including CO2, N2, and the noble gases, making it a good field location to study the fluxes of these gases within the crust and to the atmosphere. In this study, we present a compilation of 1252 published gas-composition measurements. The data reveal at least three natural gas associations in theAuthorsWilliam H. Craddock, Madalyn S. Blondes, Christina A. DeVera, Andrew G. HuntGeologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources—Southern Rocky Mountain Basins: Chapter M in Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
The U.S. Geological Survey has completed an assessment of the potential geologic carbon dioxide storage resources in the onshore areas of the United States. To provide geological context and input data sources for the resources numbers, framework documents are being prepared for all areas that were investigated as part of the national assessment. This report, chapter M, is the geologic framework dAuthorsMatthew D. Merrill, Ronald M. Drake, Marc L. Buursink, William H. Craddock, Joseph A. East, Ernie R. Slucher, Peter D. Warwick, Sean T. Brennan, Madalyn S. Blondes, Philip A. Freeman, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Celeste D. LohrGeologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources─South Florida Basin: Chapter L in Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
This report presents five storage assessment units (SAUs) that have been identified as potentially suitable for geologic carbon dioxide sequestration within a 35,075-square-mile area that includes the entire onshore and State-water portions of the South Florida Basin. Platform-wide, thick successions of laterally extensive carbonates and evaporites deposited in highly cyclic depositional environmeAuthorsTina L. Roberts-Ashby, Sean T. Brennan, Matthew D. Merrill, Madalyn S. Blondes, P.A. Freeman, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Celeste D. LohrGeologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources: Permian and Palo Duro Basins and Bend Arch-Fort Worth Basin: Chapter K in Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon dioxide storage resources
The U.S. Geological Survey has completed an assessment of the potential geologic carbon dioxide storage resource in the onshore areas of the United States. To provide geological context and input data sources for the resources numbers, framework documents are being prepared for all areas that were investigated as part of the national assessment. This report is the geologic framework document for tAuthorsMatthew D. Merrill, Ernie R. Slucher, Tina L. Roberts-Ashby, Peter D. Warwick, Madalyn S. Blondes, P.A. Freeman, Steven M. Cahan, Christina A. DeVera, Celeste D. LohrAtmospheric particulate matter in proximity to mountaintop coal mines: Sources and potential environmental and human health impacts
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 mining sites iAuthorsLaura Kurth, Allan Kolker, Mark A. Engle, Nicholas J. Geboy, Michael Hendryx, William H. Orem, Michael McCawley, Lynn M. Crosby, Calin A. Tatu, Matthew S. Varonka, Christina A. DeVera - Science
Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) Project
The ERP Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) Project is responsible for developing, implementing, and managing a LIMS architecture that expands the LIMS capabilities to support ERP laboratory needs for capturing, tracking, reporting, and managing sample and analysis data generated in ERP laboratories as well as data for samples submitted to external laboratories. The LIMS Project works... - Data
Geologic formations and mine locations for potential CO2 mineralization
This geodatabase contains geologic unit boundaries and asbestos site locations shown in "Carbon dioxide mineralization feasibility in the United States" (Blondes and others, 2019). Data was compiled from source material at a scale range of 1:100,000 to 1:5,000,000 and is not intended for any greater detail.Microbial Communities Associated with Hot Springs and other CO2-rich Waters, Rocky Mountain Plateau
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 effervesciLow biomass microbiology samples collected from a hydraulically fractured well producing from the Niobrara Shale in Colorado
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 Niobrara Shale iMicrobiology of the greater Bravo Dome region
Bravo Dome is a commercial natural CO2 field that supplies the gas to depleted oil fields for enhanced oil recovery. In order to understand the distribution of CO2 across the greater Bravo Dome region, including southeastern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, and to assess the impacts of high CO2 concentrations on microbes in the subsurface, 7 samples were collected from sites associated with h