Publications
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Development, evolution, and destruction of the saline mineral area of Eocene Lake Uinta, Piceance Basin, western Colorado
Halite and the sodium bicarbonate mineral nahcolite were deposited in Eocene-age saline Lake Uinta in the Piceance Basin, northwestern Colorado. Variations in the areal extent of saline mineral deposition through time were studied using descriptions of core and outcrop. Saline minerals have been extensively leached by groundwater, and the original extent of saline deposition was determined from th
Authors
Ronald C. Johnson, Michael E. Brownfield
Multivariate analysis relating oil shale geochemical properties to NMR relaxometry
Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry has been used to provide insight into shale composition by separating relaxation responses from the various hydrogen-bearing phases present in shales in a noninvasive way. Previous low-field NMR work using solid-echo methods provided qualitative information on organic constituents associated with raw and pyrolyzed oil shale samples, but uncert
Authors
Justin E. Birdwell, Kathryn E. Washburn
Laboratory electrical resistivity analysis of geologic samples from Fort Irwin, California
Correlating laboratory resistivity measurements with geophysical resistivity models helps constrain these models to the geology and lithology of an area. Throughout the Fort Irwin National Training Center area, 111 samples from both cored boreholes and surface outcrops were collected and processed for laboratory measurements. These samples represent various lithologic types that include plutonic a
Authors
Benjamin R. Bloss, Paul A. Bedrosian
Stochastic reservoir simulation for the modeling of uncertainty in coal seam degasification
Coal seam degasification improves coal mine safety by reducing the gas content of coal seams and also by generating added value as an energy source. Coal seam reservoir simulation is one of the most effective ways to help with these two main objectives. As in all modeling and simulation studies, how the reservoir is defined and whether observed productions can be predicted are important considerat
Authors
C. Özgen Karacan, Ricardo A. Olea
Thermal maturity of Tasmanites microfossils from confocal laser scanning fluorescence microscopy
We report here, for the first time, spectral properties of Tasmanites microfossils determined by confocal laser scanning fluorescence microscopy (CLSM, using Ar 458 nm excitation). The Tasmanites occur in a well-characterized natural maturation sequence (Ro 0.48–0.74%) of Devonian shale (n = 3 samples) from the Appalachian Basin. Spectral property λmax shows excellent agreement (r2 = 0.99) with ex
Authors
Paul C. Hackley, Jolanta Kus
In-place oil shale resources of the Mahogany zone sorted by grade, overburden thickness and stripping ratio, Green River Formation, Piceance Basin, Colorado and Uinta Basin, Utah
A range of geological parameters relevant to mining oil shale have been examined for the Mahogany zone of the Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, Colorado, and Uinta Basin, Utah, using information available in the U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment database. Basinwide discrete and cumulative distributions of resource in-place as a function of (1) oil shale grade, (2) Mahogany zon
Authors
Justin E. Birdwell, Tracey J. Mercier, Ronald C. Johnson, Michael E. Brownfield
Metal Mixture Modeling Evaluation project: 2. Comparison of four modeling approaches
As part of the Metal Mixture Modeling Evaluation (MMME) project, models were developed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan), the U.S. Geological Survey (USA), HDR⎪HydroQual, Inc. (USA), and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UK) to address the effects of metal mixtures on biological responses of aquatic organisms. A comparison of the 4 models, as they
Authors
Kevin J. Farley, Joe Meyer, Laurie S. Balistrieri, Karl DeSchamphelaere, Yuichi Iwasaki, Colin Janssen, Masashi Kamo, Steve Lofts, Christopher A. Mebane, Wataru Naito, Adam C. Ryan, Robert C. Santore, Edward Tipping
Assessment of unconventional oil and gas resources in the Jurassic Sargelu Formation of Iraq, 2014
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) quantitatively assessed the potential for unconventional (continuous) oil and gas resources within the Jurassic Sargelu Formation of Iraq. Organic-rich shales of the Jurassic Sargelu Formation are one of the main petroleum source rocks for conventional fields in the Arabian Peninsula. The Sargelu Formation consists of marine shales, with as much as 10 weight perce
Authors
Christopher J. Schenk, Janet K. Pitman, Ronald R. Charpentier, Timothy R. Klett, Stephanie B. Gaswirth, Michael E. Brownfield, Heidi M. Leathers, Tracey J. Mercier, Marilyn E. Tennyson
Environmental assessment of water, sediment, and biota collected from the Bear Creek watershed, Colusa County, California
The Cache Creek watershed lies within California's North Coast Range, an area with abundant geologic sources of mercury (Hg) and a long history of Hg contamination (Rytuba, 2000). Bear Creek, Cache Creek, and the North Fork of Cache Creek are the major streams of the Cache Creek watershed, encompassing 2978 km2. The Cache Creek watershed contains soils naturally enriched in Hg as well as natural s
Authors
James J. Rytuba, Roger L. Hothem, Brianne E. Brussee, Daniel Goldstein, Jason T. May
Re–Os age for the Lower–Middle Pennsylvanian Boundary and comparison with associated palynoflora
The Betsie Shale Member is a relatively thick and continuous unit that serves as a marker bed across the central Appalachian basin, in part because it includes an organic-rich shale unit at its base that is observable in drill logs. Deposited during a marine transgression, the Betsie Shale Member has been correlated to units in both Wales and Germany and has been proposed to mark the boundary bet
Authors
Nicholas J. Geboy, G.R Tripathy, Leslie F. Ruppert, C.F. Eble, B.M. Blake, J. L. Hannah, H. J. Stein
Detrital zircon U-Pb reconnaissance of the Franciscan subduction complex in northwestern California
In northwestern California, the Franciscan subduction complex has been subdivided into seven major tectonostratigraphic units. We report U-Pb ages of ≈2400 detrital zircon grains from 26 sandstone samples from 5 of these units. Here, we tabulate each unit's interpreted predominant sediment source areas and depositional age range, ordered from the oldest to the youngest unit. (1) Yolla Bolly terran
Authors
Trevor Dimitru, W. Gary Ernst, Jeremy K. Hourigan, Robert J. McLaughlin
Map of assessed continuous (unconventional) oil resources in the United States, 2014
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts quantitative assessments of potential oil and gas resources of the onshore United States and associated coastal State waters. Since 2000, the USGS has completed assessments of continuous (unconventional) resources in the United States based on geologic studies and analysis of well-production data and has compiled digital maps of the assessment units class
Authors