USGS National and Global Oil and Gas Assessment Project-Permian Basin Province, Delaware Basin, Wolfcamp Shale and Bone Spring Assessment Units and Input Data

This data release contains the boundaries of assessment units and input data for the assessment of undiscovered oil and gas in the Delaware Basin, Wolfcamp Shale and Bone Spring. The Assessment Unit is the fundamental unit used in the National Assessment Project for the assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources. The Assessment Unit is defined within the context of the higher-level Total Petroleum System. The Assessment Unit is shown herein as a geographic boundary interpreted, defined, and mapped by the geologist responsible for the province and incorporates a set of known or postulated oil and (or) gas accumulations sharing similar geologic, geographic, and temporal properties within the Total Petroleum System, such as source rock, timing, migration pathways, trapping mechanism, and hydrocarbon type. The Assessment Unit boundary is defined geologically as the limits of the geologic elements that define the Assessment Unit, such as limits of reservoir rock, geologic structures, source rock, and seal lithologies. The only exceptions to this are Assessment Units that border the Federal-State water boundary. In these cases, the Federal-State water boundary forms part of the Assessment Unit boundary. This data release also contains comma-separated (CSV) data for assessment input data and area allocation tables (DelawareBasinInputAllocations.xlsx). The input data if formatted in a human-readable format used during assessment meetings and is included (5044DelawareBasinInputForms.pdf). Documentation for these csv is included (Input Forms Colum Descriptions.xlsx). Methodology of assessments are documented in USGS Data Series 547 for continous assessments (https://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/547) and USGS DDS69-D, Chapter 21 for conventional assessments (https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-d/REPORTS/69_D_CH_21.pdf).