Christopher J Schenk

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently assessed the undiscovered oil and gas potential of the Permian Basin Province of west Texas and southeast New Mexico. The assessment was geology based and used the total petroleum system concept. The geologic elements of a total petroleum system are petroleum source rocks (quality, source rock maturation, generation, and migration), reservoir...

A geologic model was developed to assess undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Kemik-Thomson Play of the Central North Slope, Alaska. In this model, regional erosion during the Early Cretaceous produced an incised valley system on the flanks and crest of the Mikkelsen High and formed the Lower Cretaceous unconformity. Locally derived, coarse-grained siliciclastic and carbonate...

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 113.7 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas, a mean of 690 million barrels of undiscovered oil, and a mean of 3.7 billion barrels of undiscovered natural gas liquids in onshore lands and State waters of the Gulf Coast.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed a new assessment of undiscovered natural gas resources of the Sacramento Basin Province of California. Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the USGS mean estimates of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources are 534 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 323 thousand barrels of natural gas liquids in the Sacramento Basin...

An exposure of the Lower Cretaceous Fortress Mountain and Torok Formations along the Siksikpuk River in north-central Alaska provides a rare opportunity to observe the stratigraphic contact between these two formations and to interpret the depositional facies and sequence stratigraphy of the exposed strata. The Fortress Mountain Formation at the base of the measured section includes...

In 2003, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed an assessment of the oil and gas resource potential of the San Joaquin Basin Province of California (fig. 1.1). The assessment is based on the geologic elements of each Total Petroleum System defined in the province, including hydrocarbon source rocks (source-rock type and maturation and hydrocarbon generation and migration), reservoir...