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Concentrations of the lanthanide series or rare earth elements and yttrium were determined for lacustrine oil shale samples from the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin of Colorado and the Uinta Basin of Utah. Unprocessed oil shale, post-pyrolysis (spent) shale, and leached shale... |
Tuesday, February 07, 2012 Type: Publication
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Using a geologic-based assessment methodology, the USGS estimated an in-place oil shale resource of 906 billion barrels under Federal mineral rights, or 62 percent of the total oil shale in place, in the Green River and Washakie Basins, Wyoming. More than 67 percent of the total oil shale in-place… |
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 Type: Publication
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USGS recently completed a comprehensive assessment of in-place oil in oil shales in the Eocene Green River in the Greater Green River Basin, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. This DVD includes reports, data, and an ArcGIS project describing the assessment... |
Thursday, August 11, 2011 Type: Publication
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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently (2011) completed an assessment of in-place oil shale resources, regardless of grade, in the Eocene Green River Formation of the Greater Green River Basin in southwestern Wyoming, northwestern Colorado, and northeastern Utah. Green River Formation oil... |
Monday, June 27, 2011 Type: Publication
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Geology of the Nahcolite Deposts and Associated Oil Shales of the Green River Formation in the Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado |
Tuesday, March 01, 2011 Type: Outside Publication
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This report provides extensive details of an in-place assessment of the oil shale and nahcolite resources of the Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin of western Colorado. It includes 7 chapters, geospatial and tabular datasets. |
Monday, October 04, 2010 Type: Publication
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This report provides extensive details of an in-place assessment of the oil shale resources of the Uinta Basin of Utah and Colorado. It includes 7 chapters, dozens of digital maps and geospatial and tabular data. |
Monday, October 04, 2010 Type: Publication
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This report releases a database of digitized Fischer (shale-oil) assays of cores and cuttings from boreholes drilled in the Eocene Green River oil shale deposits in southwestern Wyoming. |
Tuesday, September 07, 2010 Type: Publication
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Using a geologic-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated an in-place oil shale resource of 1.07 trillion barrels under Federal mineral rights, or 70 percent of the total oil shale in... |
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 Type: Publication
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This publication includes updated files containing Fischer assays of samples of core holes and cuttings from exploration drill holes drilled in the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin of northwestern Colorado. |
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 Type: Publication
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Overview
How much oil shale is here? Click the
image to find out!
The Eocene Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming contains the largest oil shale deposits in the world. Oil shale, despite the name, does not actually contain oil, but rather a type of organic matter called kerogen, a precursor of oil that is converted to a type of crude oil when heated to about 450 – 500° C. The oil shale deposits are in three structural and sedimentary basins: (1) the Piceance Basin in western Colorado, (2) the Uinta Basin in eastern Utah and western Colorado, and (3) the Greater Green River Basin in southwest Wyoming and northwest Colorado.
The USGS is currently making available a large amount of oil shale data, including Fischer assay data, previous USGS oil shale assessment scans of geophysical logs, core descriptions, and a large bibliography of USGS oil shale publications. All USGS publications related to oil shale are now available on-line. These include detailed assessments of the oil shale resources in the Piceance Basin (Johnson and others, 2010a), Uinta Basin (Johnson and others, 2010b) and the Greater Green River Basin (Johnson and others, 2011). Estimated total in-place resources are about 1.5 trillion barrels of oil for the Piceance Basin, about 1.3 trillion barrels of oil for the Uinta Basin and 1.44 trillion barrels of oil in the Green River Formation. Because the Piceance Basin is much smaller than the Uinta Basin, the oil shale resources are more concentrated there.
Ron Johnson
Project Chief
Research
Overview Map of the greater Green River formation, including Oil Shale bearing rocks, Piceance, Uinta, Green River, Greate Divid, Washakie and Sand Wash Basins. (DDS 69-Y)
Piceance Basin, Colorado 2010 Assessment
An in-place assessment of the oil shale and nahcolite resources of the Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin of western Colorado was competed in 2010. The Piceance Basin is one of three large structural and sedimentary basins that contain vast amounts of oil shale resources in the Green River Formation of Eocene age. [+]
The oil shale interval in the Piceance Basin is subdivided into seventeen “rich” and “lean” zones and each interval was assessed for variations in gallons per ton, barrels per acre, and total barrels in each 36-square mile township. These zones are roughly time-stratigraphic units consisting of distinctive, laterally continuous sequences of rich and lean oil shale beds that can be traced throughout much of the Piceance Basin. The Radial Basis Function extrapolation method was used to generate isopach and isoresource maps, and to calculate resources.
Estimated in-place oil is about 1.5 trillion barrels, based on Fischer assay results from boreholes drilled to evaluate oil shale, making it the largest oil shale deposit in the world. The estimated in-place nahcolite resource is about 43.3 billion short tons.
Results of this assessment are available in the following publications:
Johnson, R.C., Brownfield, M.E., and Mercier, T.J., (U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment Team), 2010a, Oil Shale and Nahcolite Resources of the Piceance Basin, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-69-Y [CD-ROM]. http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-y/
Mercier, T.J., Johnson, R.C., Brownfield, M.E., and Self, J.G., 2010, In-Place Oil Shale Resources Underlying Federal Lands in the Piceance Basin, Western Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet FS-2010-3041, 4 p. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3041/
Johnson, R.C., Mercier, T.J., Brownfield, M.E., Pantea, M.P., and Self, J.G., 2009, Assessment of in-place oil shale resources of the Green River Formation, Piceance Basin, western Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2009–3012, 6 p. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3012/
Uinta Basin, Colorado and Utah 2010 Assessment
A comprehensive geology-based assessment of in-place oil, regardless of richness, in oil shales of the Eocene Green River Formation of the Uinta Basin of eastern Utah and western Colorado was conducted in 2010. [+]
The oil shale interval was subdivided into eighteen roughly time-stratigraphic intervals, and each interval was assessed for variations in gallons per ton, barrels per acre, and total barrels in each 36-square mile township. The Radial Basis Function extrapolation method was used to generate isopach and isoresource maps, and to calculate resources. The total in-place resource for the Uinta Basin is estimated at 1.32 trillion barrels. This is only slightly lower than the estimated 1.53 trillion barrels for the adjacent Piceance Basin, Colorado, to the east, which is thought to be the richest oil shale deposit in the world. However, the area underlain by oil shale in the Uinta Basin is much larger than that of the Piceance Basin—3,834 mi2 vs. 1,335 mi2 —and the average gallons per ton and barrels per acre values for each of the assessed oil shale zones are significantly lower in the depocenter in the Uinta Basin when compared to the Piceance. These relations indicate that the oil shale resources in the Uinta Basin are of lower grade and are more dispersed than the oil shale resources of the Piceance Basin.
Results of this assessment are available in the following publications:
Johnson, R.C., (and U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment Team), 2010, Oil Shale Resources of the Uinta Basin, Utah and Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-69-BB, [CD-ROM]. http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-bb/
Johnson, R.C., Mercier, T.J., Brownfield, M.E., and Self, J.G., 2010, Assessment of in-place oil shale resources of the Green River Formation, Uinta Basin, Utah and Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2010-3010, 4 p. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3010/
Green River Basin, Southwestern Wyoming and Colorado 2011 Assessment
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) completed in 2011 a comprehensive assessment of in-place oil in oil shales in the Eocene Green River in the Greater Green River Basin, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. Results of this study are provided in two publications, below:
Johnson, R.C., (and U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment Team), 2010, Oil Shale Resources of the Eocene Green River Formation, Greater Green River Basin, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-69-DD, [CD-ROM]. http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-ddb/
Johnson, R.C., Mercier, T.J., and Brownfield, M.E., 2011, Assessment of In-Place Oil Shale Resources of the Green River Formation, Greater Green River Basin in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2011-3063, 4 p. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2011/3063/
Multimedia
Oil Shale Assessment of the Green River Formation:
Page Last Modified: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
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