Energy Resources Program
Wednesday, September 06, 2017
Monday, August 07, 2017
The Colorado Plateau hosts several large accumulations of naturally occurring, non-hydrocarbon gases, including CO2, N2, and the noble gases, making it a good field location to study the fluxes of these gases within the crust and to the atmosphere...
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
This legacy database lists occurrences of minerals identified in the Green River Formation in the Uinta and Piceance Basins, Utah and Colorado using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The database was compiled from data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and former U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM). The database includes 1200 samples from 14 cores in...
Monday, August 11, 2014
Outside Publication: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta Rhenium–osmium (Re–Os) geochronology of marine petroleum systems has allowed the determination of the depositional age of source rocks as well as the timing of petroleum generation. In addition, Os isotopes have been applied as a fingerprinting tool to correlate oil to its source unit. To date, only classic marine petroleum systems have been studied...
Monday, April 14, 2014
USGS Publication: Open-File Report 2014–1059 The spatial and stratigraphic distribution of water in oil shale of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin of northwestern Colorado was studied in detail using some 321,000 Fischer assay analyses in the U.S. Geological Survey oil-shale database. The oil-shale section was subdivided into 17 roughly time-stratigraphic intervals, and the distribution of water in each interval was assessed separately.
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
USGS Publication: Open-File Report 2012–1205 This map sheet with accompanying Geographic Information System (GIS) project is an update of the existing U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Conterminous U.S. Coal Fields map. This update was compiled using data primarily from the USGS National Coal Resource Assessment (NCRA) and information from other published maps.
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
Website News 2,263 scanned logs of various types including gamma ray, sonic, neutron, caliper, and lithologic descriptions are available for 621 different wells in the Piceance Basin of western Colorado. Logged intervals generally focus on the Green River Formation which contains large amounts of oil shale in this area. Image quality varies considerably with the condition of the starting material. Files are PDFs or TIFFs and file size ranges up to 560 megabytes with and an average size of 33 megabytes. This page contains data downloads for Piceance Basin, 2010 Oil Shale Assesment, compiled from DDS-69-Y.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
USGS Publication: Open-File Report 2012–1151 The Organic Petrology Laboratory (OPL) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Eastern Energy Resources Science Center in Reston, Virginia, contains several thousand processed coal sample materials that were loosely organized in laboratory drawers for the past several decades.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
USGS Publication: Scientific Investigations Report 2012–5076 The in-place oil shale resources in the Eocene Green River Formation of the Piceance Basin of western Colorado and the Uinta Basin of western Colorado and eastern Utah are estimated at 1.53 trillion barrels and 1.32 trillion barrels, respectively. Although the Green River Formation is largely eroded for about a 20-mile area along the crest of the arch, the oil shale interval is similar in both basins, and 17 out of 18 of the assessed oil shale zones are common to both basins. Assessment maps for these 17 zones are combined so that the overall distribution of oil shale over the entire extent of Lake Uinta can be studied.
The Colorado Plateau is a large physiographic region, roughly centered on the Four Corners Region of the southwestern United States. This website provides an overview of the various studies the USGS Energy Resources Program has conducted in this area:
The USGS has completed several assessments of the Colorado Plateau:
Uinta Piceance Basin Paradox Basin San Juan Basin
The National Coal Resource Assessment (NCRA) project was a multi-year effort by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Energy Program to identify, characterize, and assess the coal resources that will supply a major part of the Nation’s energy needs during the next few decades. NCRA data and publications are available on the NCRA Colorado Plateau page.
Coalbed methane assessments for the Colorado Plateau are currently available for the following basins:
Uinta Piceance Basin San Juan Basin
USGS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Pertaining to "Coal"
Energy Resources Program - Powder River Basin, Wyoming
Page Last Modified: Friday, October 13, 2017