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Assessment of continuous oil and gas resources in the Bakken Formation of northwest Montana, 2022

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated means of 220 million barrels of continuous oil and 1 trillion cubic feet of continuous gas in the Bakken Formation of northwest Montana.
Authors
Christopher J. Schenk, Michael H. Gardner, Tracey J. Mercier, Cheryl A. Woodall, Phuong A. Le, Andrea D. Cicero, Ronald M. Drake, Geoffrey S. Ellis, Thomas M. Finn, Sarah E. Gelman, Jane S. Hearon, Benjamin G. Johnson, Jenny H. Lagesse, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Kristen R. Marra, Kira K. Timm, Scott S. Young

Report of the Science Community Workshop on the proposed First Sample Depot for the Mars Sample Return Campaign

The Mars 2020/Mars Sample Return (MSR) Sample Depot Science Community Workshop was held on September 28 and 30, 2022, to assess the Scientifically-Return Worthy (SRW) value of the full collection of samples acquired by the rover Perseverance at Jezero Crater, and of a proposed subset of samples to be left as a First Depot at a location within Jezero Crater called Three Forks. The primary outcome o
Authors
Andrew D. Czaja, Maria-Paz Zorzano Mier, Gerhard Kminek, Michael Meyer, David Beaty, Elliot Sefton-Nash, Brandi Carrier, Fiona Thiessen, Timothy Haltigin, Audrey Bouvier, Nicolas Dauphas, Katherine L. French, Lydia Hallis, Rachel Harris, Ernst Hauber, Laura Rodriguez, Susanne P. Schwenzer, Andrew Steele, Kimberly Tait, Michael T. Thorpe, Tomohiro Usui, Jessica Vanhomwegen, Michael Velbel, Samuel Edwin, Kenneth A. Farley, Daniel Glavin, Andrea Harrington, Lindsay Hays, Aurore Hutzler, Meenakshi Wadhwa

Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources of the Barents Sea area, 2021

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean conventional resources of 7.3 billion barrels of oil and 463.7 trillion cubic feet of gas within the Barents Sea area.
Authors
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Cheryl A. Woodall, Geoffrey S. Ellis, Thomas M. Finn, Phuong A. Le, Kristen R. Marra, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Ronald M. Drake

Sandstone-hosted uranium deposits of the Colorado Plateau, USA

More than 4,000 sandstone-hosted uranium occurrences host over 1.2 billion pounds of mined and in situ U3O8 throughout the Colorado Plateau. Most of the resources are in two distinct mineral systems with deposits hosted in the Triassic Chinle and Jurassic Morrison Formations. In the Chinle mineral system, base metal sulfides typically accompany mineralization. The Morrison mineral system is charac
Authors
Susan M. Hall, Bradley S. Van Gosen, Robert A. Zielinski

Analysis of the United States documented unplugged orphaned oil and gas well dataset

In coordination with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and in response to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) produced a documented unplugged orphaned oil and gas well dataset (called the DOW dataset hereafter) that contains the location and status of these wells nationwide as of 2022. The DOW dataset includes 117,672 wells across 27 states. The data
Authors
Matthew D. Merrill, Claire A. Grove, Nicholas J. Gianoutsos, Philip A. Freeman

Assessment of continuous oil and gas resources in the Lower Saxony Basin of Germany, 2020

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 321 million barrels of shale oil and 435 billion cubic feet of shale gas in the Lower Saxony Basin, Germany.
Authors
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Cheryl A. Woodall, Thomas M. Finn, Kristen R. Marra, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Phuong A. Le, Ronald M. Drake, Geoffrey S. Ellis

Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources of the Senegal Basin Province of northwest Africa, 2021

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 13,929 million (13.9 billion) barrels of oil and 193,721 billion (193.7 trillion) cubic feet of gas within the Senegal Basin Province of northwest Africa.
Authors
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Cheryl A. Woodall, Phuong A. Le, Andrea D. Cicero, Ronald M. Drake, Geoffrey S. Ellis, Thomas M. Finn, Michael H. Gardner, Sarah E. Gelman, Jane S. Hearon, Benjamin G. Johnson, Jenny H. Lagesse, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Kristen R. Marra, Kira K. Timm, Scott S. Young

Geochemistry of the Cretaceous Mowry Shale in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming

The siliceous nature of the Mowry Shale distinguishes it from many of the well-studied organic-rich mudstones of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway. Available models of organic enrichment in mudstones rarely incorporate detailed biomarker, bulk organic, inorganic, and mineralogy data. Here, we used these data to evaluate how variations in organic matter source, productivity, dilution, and pres
Authors
Katherine L. French, Justin E. Birdwell, Paul G. Lillis

Bulk and intramolecular carbon isotopic compositions of hydrocarbon gases from laboratory pyrolysis of oil shale of the Green River Formation: Implications for isotope structures of kerogens

Evaluation of intramolecular isotope distributions within organic compounds can provide important insights into gas formation processes and structural properties of gas-generating precursors, such as kerogen, bitumen, and oil, in natural reservoirs. Until recently, little has been known about the intramolecular isotope distributions within kerogens. In this study, we conducted systematic pyrolysis
Authors
Xiaoqiang Li, Justin E. Birdwell, Juske Horita

Assessment of undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in Mesozoic total petroleum systems of the Central European Basin system, 2019

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable continuous resources of 5.8 billion barrels of oil and 22.4 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Mesozoic Total Petroleum Systems of the Central European Basin.
Authors
Christopher J. Schenk, Tracey J. Mercier, Cheryl A. Woodall, Heidi M. Leathers-Miller, Phuong A. Le, Ronald M. Drake, Scott A. Kinney, Michael E. Brownfield

Assessment of undiscovered conventional gas resources in the Deep Tuscaloosa Group Sandstones of the Western Gulf Basin Province, U.S. Gulf Coast region, 2021

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable mean resources of 14,785 billion cubic feet of gas resources in the Western Gulf Basin Province, U.S. Gulf Coast region.
Authors
Matthew D. Merrill, Catherine B. Enomoto

Science mission requirements for a globally ranging, riserless drilling vessel for U.S. Scientific Ocean Drilling

Through the collection and analysis of shallow and deep subseafloor sediments, rocks, fluids, and life, scientific ocean drilling has enriched our understanding of the complex Earth system. Among other achievements, scientific ocean drilling has documented the history of Earth’s climate, the waxing and waning of polar ice sheets, the past changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation, the existence
Authors
Stephanie A Carr, Timothy Collett, Justin P. Dodd, Patricia Fryer, Patrick Fulton, Sean P. S. Gulick, Hiroko Kitajima, Anthony A.P. Koppers, Basia Marcks, D. Jay Miller, Yair Rosenthal, Angela Slagle, Masako Tominaga, Marta E. Torres, Julia Wellner