Publications

For more than two decades, the paradigm of large-magnitude (~250 km), northwest-directed (~N70°W) Neogene extensional lengthening between the Colorado Plateau and Sierra Nevada at the approximate latitude of Las Vegas has remained largely unchallenged, as has the notion that the strain integrates with coeval strains in adjacent regions and with plate-boundary strain. The paradigm depends on poorly

In this study, attenuated total reflectance (ATR) Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was coupled with partial least squares regression (PLSR) analysis to relate spectral data to parameters from total organic carbon (TOC) analysis and programmed pyrolysis to assess the feasibility of developing predictive models to estimate important organic geochemical parameters. The advantage of ATR-

The concentrations of the rare earth elements (REE) in surface waters and sediments, when normalized on an element-by-element basis to one of several rock standards and plotted versus atomic number, yield curves that reveal their partitioning between different sediment fractions and the sources of those fractions, for example, between terrestrial-derived lithogenous debris and seawater-derived bio

Depositional models of ancient lakes in thin-skinned retroarc foreland basins rarely benefit from appropriate Quaternary analogues. To address this, we present new stratigraphic, sedimentological and geochemical analyses of four radiocarbon-dated sediment cores from the Pozuelos Basin (PB; northwest Argentina) that capture the evolution of this low-accommodation Puna basin over the past ca. 43 cal

Stranded gas resources are defined for this study as gas resources in discrete accumulations that are not currently commercially producible, or producible at full potential, for either physical or economic reasons. Approximately 35 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of stranded gas was identified on Alaska’s North Slope. The commercialization of this resource requires facilities to transport gas to markets

Black, organic-rich rocks of the upper shale member of the Upper Devonian–Lower Mississippian Bakken Formation, a world-class petroleum source rock in the Williston Basin of the United States and Canada, contain a diverse suite of mudstone lithofacies that were deposited in distinct facies belts. The succession consists of three discrete facies associations (FAs). These comprise: 1) siliceous muds

Understanding changes in petrophysical and geochemical parameters during source rock thermal maturation is a critical component in evaluating source-rock petroleum accumulations. Natural core data are preferred, but obtaining cores that represent the same facies of a source rock at different thermal maturities is seldom possible. An alternative approach is to induce thermal maturity changes by lab

Artificial maturation methods are used to induce changes in source rock thermal maturity without the uncertainties that arise when comparing natural samples from a particular basin that often represent different levels of maturation and different lithofacies. A novel uniaxial confinement clamp was used on Woodford Shale cores in hydrous pyrolysis experiments to limit sample expansion by simulating

Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) relaxometry is a non-invasive technique commonly used to assess hydrogen-bearing fluids in petroleum reservoir rocks. Measurements made using LF-NMR provide information on rock porosity, pore-size distributions, and in some cases, fluid types and saturations (Timur, 1967; Kenyon et al., 1986; Straley et al., 1994; Brown, 2001; Jackson, 2001; Kleinberg,

The study of produced fluids allows comparisons among tight-gas systems. This paper examines gas, oil, and water production data from vertical wells in 23 fields in five Rocky Mountain basins of the United States, mostly from wells completed before the year 2000. Average daily rates of gas, oil, and water production are determined two years and seven years after production begins in order to repre

Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) relaxometry is a non-invasive technique commonly used to assess hydrogen-bearing fluids in petroleum reservoir rocks. Longitudinal T1 and transverse T2 relaxation time measurements made using LF-NMR on conventional reservoir systems provides information on rock porosity, pore size distributions, and fluid types and saturations in some cases. Recent imp

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) at low field is used extensively to provide porosity and pore-size distributions in reservoir rocks. For unconventional resources, due to low porosity and permeability of the samples, much of the signal exists at very short T2 relaxation times. In addition, the organic content of many shales will also produce signal at short relaxation times. Despite recent imp