Justin Birdwell
My USGS research involves a range of energy-related issues, including: assessing undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in U.S. petroleum systems; evaluating geothermal, critical minerals, and energy storage potential in sedimentary basins; examining environmental impacts of energy development; and researching paleoenvironmental conditions using geochemical methods.
Justin Birdwell is a research engineer and geochemist with the USGS Energy Resources Program’s Gulf Coast Geologic Energy Assessments and Research project. As a Mendenhall Post-doctoral Research Fellow he helped refine previous assessments of Green River oil shale resources, conducted experimental work to evaluate in-situ retorting approaches to oil shave development, and studied the environmental impacts of oil shale utilization. His current work is focused on petroleum resource assessments in Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain basins, geochemical characterization of source rocks and petroleum using standard and advanced methods, evaluation of non-petroleum resource potential in petroliferous sedimentary basins, and development of geochemical reference materials.
Justin is the current Chair of the Geological Society of America’s Energy Geology Division (2024), past-president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Energy Minerals Division (EMD; 2021-2022), an Associate Editor of AAPG Bulletin, Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Coal Geology, a representative of the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists in the AAPG House of Delegates, and three-time technical program chair for the AAPG Rocky Mountain Section annual meeting (2022-2024).
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=16174195400
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Justin_Birdwell
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=7xr20ZQAAAAJ
Professional Experience
10/2012-2/2024, Research Environmental Engineer, USGS
11/2011-9/2012, General Research Engineer, USGS
10/2009-10/2011, Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow/Research Engineer, USGS
1/2008-9/2009, Research Associate, LSU
8/2002-12/2007, Graduate Student/Research & Teaching Assistant, LSU
Education and Certifications
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, 2007, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Advisor: Louis J. Thibodeaux)
B.S., Chemical Engineering, 2002, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Science and Products
Distribution of mineral phases in the Eocene Green River Formation, Piceance Basin, Colorado – Implications for the evolution of Lake Uinta
Geochemistry of a thermally immature Eagle Ford Group drill core in central Texas
Integration of microfacies analysis, inorganic geochemical data, and hyperspectral imaging to unravel mudstone depositional and diagenetic processes in two cores from the Triassic Shublik Formation, Northern Alaska
Investigation into the effect of heteroatom content on kerogen structure using advanced 13C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
Controls on organic matter distributions in Eocene Lake Uinta, Utah and Colorado
High microscale variability in Raman thermal maturity estimates from shale organic matter
Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Eagle Ford Group and associated Cenomanian–Turonian Strata, U.S. Gulf Coast, Texas, 2018
Evolution of sulfur speciation in bitumen through hydrous pyrolysis induced thermal maturation of Jordanian Ghareb Formation oil shale
Stratigraphic intervals for oil and tar sands deposits in the Uinta Basin, Utah
Geochemical and mineralogical characterization of the Eagle Ford Shale: Results from the USGS Gulf Coast #1 West Woodway core
Estimating thermal maturity in the Eagle Ford Shale petroleum system using gas gravity data
Extension of the analytical window for characterizing aromatic compounds in oils using a comprehensive suite of high-resolution mass spectrometry techniques and double bond equivalence versus carbon number plot
Science and Products
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- Publications
Filter Total Items: 83
Distribution of mineral phases in the Eocene Green River Formation, Piceance Basin, Colorado – Implications for the evolution of Lake Uinta
The mineralogy of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, has been the subject of numerous studies since the 1920s. Most previous work has focused on the resource potential of these lacustrine mudrocks, which in addition to substantial oil shale potential (in-place resources of 353 billion barrels of synthetic crude oil for rocks yielding at least 25 gallons per ton, GPT)AuthorsJustin E. Birdwell, Ronald C. Johnson, Michael E. BrownfieldGeochemistry of a thermally immature Eagle Ford Group drill core in central Texas
The Upper Cretaceous Eagle Ford Group displays significant lateral and vertical geochemical variability. Much of the work on the Eagle Ford Group has been focused southwest of the San Marcos arch. To more fully characterize the Eagle Ford across the entire region, a thermally immature drill core was acquired north of the San Marcos arch that recovered the Pepper Shale and the Eagle Ford Group. MolAuthorsKatherine L. French, Justin E. Birdwell, Katherine J. WhiddenIntegration of microfacies analysis, inorganic geochemical data, and hyperspectral imaging to unravel mudstone depositional and diagenetic processes in two cores from the Triassic Shublik Formation, Northern Alaska
The Middle – Upper Triassic Shublik Formation is an organic-rich heterogeneous carbonate-siliciclastic-phosphatic unit that generated much of the oil in the Prudhoe Bay field and other hydrocarbon accumulations in northern Alaska. A large dataset, including total organic carbon (TOC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) measAuthorsKatherine J. Whidden, Justin E. Birdwell, Julie A. Dumoulin, Lionel C. Fonteneau, Brigette MartiniInvestigation into the effect of heteroatom content on kerogen structure using advanced 13C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
To elucidate how different extreme heteroatom concentrations in oil shale kerogen may present and contribute to various structural features, three shale samples, containing kerogen with high oxygen content, low heteroatom content, and high sulfur content, were analyzed using advanced 13C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques, including multiple cross-polarization/magic angle spinAuthorsWenying Chu, Xiaoyan Cao, Klaus Schmidt-Rohr, Justin E. Birdwell, Jingdong MaoControls on organic matter distributions in Eocene Lake Uinta, Utah and Colorado
The Green River Formation deposited in Eocene Lake Uinta in the Uinta and Piceance Basins, Utah and Colorado, contains the largest oil shale resource in the world with an estimated 1.53 trillion barrels of oil in-place in the Piceance Basin and 1.32 trillion barrels in the Uinta Basin. The Douglas Creek arch, a slowly subsiding hinge-line between the two basins, created separate deep depocenters wAuthorsRonald C. Johnson, Tracey J. Mercier, Justin E. BirdwellHigh microscale variability in Raman thermal maturity estimates from shale organic matter
Raman spectroscopy has recently received attention as a means to estimate thermal maturity of organic matter in petroleum generating source rocks to complement more traditional approaches such as vitrinite reflectance and programmed pyrolysis. While many studies have observed positive correlations between source rock thermal maturity and Raman spectral parameters, little attention has been given tAuthorsAaron M. Jubb, Palma J. Botterell, Justin E. Birdwell, Robert C. Burruss, Paul C. Hackley, Brett J. Valentine, Javin J. Hatcherian, Stephen A. WilsonAssessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Eagle Ford Group and associated Cenomanian–Turonian Strata, U.S. Gulf Coast, Texas, 2018
Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 8.5 billion barrels of oil and 66 trillion cubic feet of gas in continuous accumulations in the Upper Cretaceous Eagle Ford Group and associated Cenomanian–Turonian strata in onshore lands of the U.S. Gulf Coast region, Texas.AuthorsKatherine J. Whidden, Janet K. Pitman, Ofori N. Pearson, Stanley T. Paxton, Scott A. Kinney, Nicholas J. Gianoutsos, Christopher J. Schenk, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Justin E. Birdwell, Michael E. Brownfield, Lauri A. Burke, Russell F. Dubiel, Katherine L. French, Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Seth S. Haines, Phuong A. Le, Kristen R. Marra, Tracey J. Mercier, Marilyn E. Tennyson, Cheryl A. WoodallEvolution of sulfur speciation in bitumen through hydrous pyrolysis induced thermal maturation of Jordanian Ghareb Formation oil shale
Previous studies on the distribution of bulk sulfur species in bitumen before and after artificial thermal maturation using various pyrolysis methods have indicated that the quantities of reactive (sulfide, sulfoxide) and thermally stable (thiophene) sulfur moieties change following consistent trends under increasing thermal stress. These trends show that sulfur distributions change during maturatAuthorsJustin E. Birdwell, Michael Lewan, Kyle D. Bake, Trudy B. Bolin, Paul R. Craddock, Julia C. Forsythe, Andrew E. PomerantzStratigraphic intervals for oil and tar sands deposits in the Uinta Basin, Utah
No abstract available.AuthorsRonald C. Johnson, Justin E. Birdwell, Paul G. LillisGeochemical and mineralogical characterization of the Eagle Ford Shale: Results from the USGS Gulf Coast #1 West Woodway core
The Eagle Ford shale is a major continuous oil and gas resource play in southcentral Texas and a source for other oil accumulations in the East Texas Basin. As part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) petroleum system assessment and research efforts, a coring program to obtain several immature, shallow cores from near the outcrop belt in central Texas has been undertaken. The first of these corAuthorsJustin E. Birdwell, Adam Boehlke, Stanley T. Paxton, Katherine J. Whidden, Ofori N. PearsonEstimating thermal maturity in the Eagle Ford Shale petroleum system using gas gravity data
Basin-wide datasets that provide information on the geochemical properties of petroleum systems, such as source rock quality, product composition, and thermal maturity, are often difficult to come by or assemble from publicly available data. When published studies are available and include these kinds of properties, they generally have few sampling locations and limited numbers and types of analysAuthorsJustin E. Birdwell, Scott A. KinneyExtension of the analytical window for characterizing aromatic compounds in oils using a comprehensive suite of high-resolution mass spectrometry techniques and double bond equivalence versus carbon number plot
In this study, comprehensive two-dimensional (2D) gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (MS), and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) were used to study the aromatic fractions of crude oil and oil shale pyrolysates (shale oils). The collected data were compared and combinedAuthorsYunju Cho, Justin E. Birdwell, Manhoi Hur, Joonhee Lee, Byungjoo Kim, Sunghwan Kim