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U.S. Department of the InteriorU.S. Geological Survey
Fact Sheet 2011–3063June 2011
Oil Shale Assessment Project Fact Sheet
Assessment of In-Place Oil Shale Resources of the Green River Formation, Greater Green River Basin in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah
Printed on recycled paper
IntroductionThe 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 (fig. 1). Green River Formation oil shale also is present in the Piceance Basin
of western Colorado and in the Uinta Basin of eastern Utah and western Colorado, and the results of these assessments are published separately (Johnson and others, 2010a, 2010b). No attempt was made to estimate the amount of oil that is economi-cally recoverable because there has not yet been an economic method developed to recover the oil from Green River Formation oil shale.
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CARBON
GRAND
GARFIELD
FREMONT
DAGGETT
EAGLE
JACKSON
LINCOLN
MOFFAT
NATRONA
RIO BLANCO
Routt
Sublette
SUMMIT
Sweetwater
TETON
UINTA
UINTAHDUCHESNE
0-2
000
-4000
-2000 0
2000 4000
0
2000-2
000
-4000-600
0
40006000
-8000-6000-4000
-2000
-2000
-8000-6000
-4000
0-2
000
0
2000
02000
4000-2000
-4000
-8000-6000
-4000-2000
0
4000
20004000
6000
2000
6000
110°111° 109° 108° 107°
40°
41°
42°
43°
UTAH
WYOMING
COLORADO
SandyBend
arch
HobackBasin
SAND WASHBASIN
WASHAKIEBASIN
Great DivideBasin
RIVE
RBA
SIN
GREE
NRI
VER
BASI
N
Cherokee ridge
Wamsutter arch
Moxa
arch
Rock
Sprin
gsup
lift
GREE
N
AA’Figure 2
WYO
MIN
G
THR
UST
BELT
GraniteMountains
Rawlinsuplift
SIERRA M
ADREPARK
RANGE
Uinta MountainsMountains
AXIALBASIN
UPLIFT
Wind
River
MountainsLa Bargeplatform
Pinedale
anticline
Pinedale
anticline
Oil shale-bearing rocks
Greater Green River Basin
Outcrop of Mesaverde Group
Contours on top of Mesaverde Group (in feet)
County boundaries
Drillhole with oil shale information!
0 10 20 30
0 10 20 30
40 MILES
40 KILOMETERS
EXPLANATION
Figure 1. Map showing boundary (in red) of the Greater Green River Basin in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, which incorporates the Green River, Great Divide, Washakie, and Sand Wash Basins. Boundary of the Greater Green River Basin is the same as that for the Southwest Wyoming Province (Southwest Wyoming Province Assessment Team, 2005). Also shown are county lines, townships, major structures and uplifts, drill holes with oil shale information, areas underlain by oil shale-bearing rock, and location of cross section in figure 2. Structure contour map on the top of the Mesaverde Group is from Finn and others (2005).
MethodologyOil yields were measured using the Fischer assay method,
a standardized laboratory test for determining the oil yield from oil shale that has been almost univer sally used to determine oil yields for Green River Formation oil shales (Stanfield and Frost, 1949; American Society for Testing and Materials, 1980). Fischer assay does not necessarily measure the maximum amount of oil that an oil shale can produce, and there are retorting methods that yield more oil. However, the oil yields achieved by other methods typi cally are reported as a percentage of the Fischer assay oil yield; thus Fischer assay still is consid ered the standard by which other methods are compared. In this assessment, a spatial interpolation and extrapolation method for producing resource maps and computing resource volumes was used—the Radial Basis Function (RBF) in ArcGIS GeoStatisti-cal Analyst [(Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI), Redlands, Calif., 2006, version 9.2)].
Resource SummaryThe three units of the Green River Formation assessed
here, in ascending order, are the Tipton Shale Member, the Wilkins Peak Member, and the LaClede Bed of the Laney Member (fig. 2). Note that the boundaries of the assessment units, particularly those for LaClede Bed and Wilkins Peak assessment units vary stratigraphically across the basin. Total in-place resources are estimated at 1.44 trillion barrels of oil divided among the three assessed units as follows: (1) Tipton Shale Member, 362,816 million barrels of oil (MMBO); (2) Wilkins Peak Member, 704,991 MMBO; and (3) LaClede Bed of the Laney Member, 377,184 MMBO. Figure 3 shows total in-place oil in each 6-mile-square township for all three assessed units combined. This result compares with in-place resource estimates of 1.53 trillion barrels for the Piceance Basin of Colorado and of 1.32 trillion barrels for the Uinta Basin of Utah and Colorado. The assessed area of the Greater Green River Basin, about 5,500 mi2, is about 1.4 times larger than the assessed area of the Uinta Basin (3,834 mi2) and more than four times larger than the assessed area of the Piceance Basin (1,335 mi2). Thus, the oil shale deposits of the Greater Green River Basin are the lowest grade of the three basins that contain Green River Formation oil shale.
1.400
1.600
1.700
1.800
1.900
1,300
1,200
1,100
Tipton ShaleMember
0
0
0
0
0 0500
500
500 500
500 500
1,0001,000
1,0001,000
1,000
1,000
11.5 Miles
5.7 Miles
1.0 Miles9.5 Miles
50.5 Miles 5.3 Miles
1,500
1,500
1,500 1,500
1,500 1,500
2,000
2,500
2,000
2,0002,000
2,000
2,000
2,500
3,000
2,500
3,000
3,500Wilkins
PeakMember
CathedralBluffs
Tongueof
WasatchFormation
CathedralBluffs
Tongueof
WasatchFormation
?
?
?
?
LaClede Bed of LaneyMember LaClede Bed of Laney Member
Hartt CabinBed of
Laney Member
GREENRIVER
FORMATION
Mixed tan or gray freshwater lacustrine and sandstone deposits and gray or green flood-plain mudstone andsandstone deposits. Some volcanic debris in Hartt Cabin Bed
EXPLANATION
ROCKSPRINGSUPLIFT
WASHAKIE
BASIN
GREEN RIVER BASIN
A
A
Red flood-plain deposits Cyclic salt water lacustrine oil shale, evaporite, and mudflat deposits
Scheggs BedRife Bed
‘
Saltwater lacustrine (rich) oil shale deposits
Freshwater lacustrine (lean) oil shale deposits
Trona bed in Wilkins Peak Member
Figure 2. East-west cross section showing stratigraphic boundaries of the three oil shale units assessed (heavy black outlines) and related stratigraphic units. Note that the boundaries of the Wilkins Peak Member and the LaClede Bed of the Laney Member of the Green River Formation assessment units vary stratigraphically across the basin. Vertical lines are drillholes showing depths, in feet.
R 117 W R 116 W R 115 W R 114 W R 113 W R 112 W R 111 W R 110 W R 109 W R 108 W R 107 W R 106 W R 105 W R 104 W R 103 WR 102 W R 101 W R 100 W R 99 W R 98 W R 97 W R 96 W R 95 W R 94 W R 93 W R 92 W
R 115 W
T30N
T29N
T28N
T27NT26NT25N
T24NT23NT22NT21N
T20NT19NT18NT17N
T16NT15N
T14N
R 118 W
T13N
R 91 W
R 95 WR 100 W
R 105 W
R 110 W
475530708717304,814 3,2485,2002,064 2,652
801,1885,1487,76411,34112,13011,3085,6691,3334,448 4,59116,929 18,1055,203 11,9036,392
5725,0055,5906,80211,98513,80413,41912,3313,6205,861 7405,32218,89114,868 16,59819,15810,5097,862
1,3814,1395,60110,80813,76714,34214,0317,551425964,2366,052 13,04118,81118,50017,25213,3688,655
223212,7707,46710,915 10,63011,02810,0004,93511,81411,44319,02319,05817,78713,7978,5397,005
6,7988,030 5111,5387,3015,1642,0152472,85118,07523,09921,16718,39113,2039,2766,963
6,004 3,286 1562,3014,104372136,51012,45320,86517,318 20,67612,0678,9926,942
1,734 2,167 1,0013731,73414,52817,10921,97713,298 19,2409,6878,6726,324
20,943 78711,56415,71816,21010,4487,0176,5345,401
5,54512,97113,54212,65610,5658,0256,0485,053
9,044 11,069 12,273 12,129 5,9807,2525,0124,035
10,8444,362 8,957 9,437 6,2536,608 9,0453,762
6,111 4,625 7826,0287,5746,5644,5393,4932,872
4,916 1894,286 3,1195,9896,6524,2313,1152,5941,480
4742,9653,1813,1563,2333,6882,7751,541501
1221,7731,5271,7981,5082,9282,8101,350219
6357651,7231,5501840
47118
107°30'108°00'108°30'109°00'109°30'110°00'110°30'
42°30'
42°00'
41°30'
41°00'
0 6 12 MILES
WYOMING
0 5 10 KILOMETERS
COLORADO
WYOMING
UTAH
Assesssment boundary for the Tipton Shale Member
Assesssment boundary for the Wilkins Peak Member and LaClede Bed
EXPLANATION
> 20,000
15,000 – 20,000
10,000 – 15,000
< 5,000
Township summaries, oil yield—in millions of barrels per township
5,000 – 10,000
Figure 3. Map showing total in-place oil, in millions of barrels, for each township assessed in the Greater Green River Basin, Wyoming.
REFERENCES CITED
American Society for Testing and Materi als (ASTM), 1980, Standard method of test for oil from oil shale: Annual Book of ASTM Standards, Part 25, Designa tion D 3904–80, p. 513–515.
Finn, T. M., Johnson, R. C., and Roberts, S. B., 2005, The Mesaverde-Lance-Fort Union composite Total Petroleum System, Southwestern Wyoming Province: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-69-D, Chapter 10, 33 p.
Johnson, R.C., Mercier, T.J., Brownfield, M.E., Pantea, M.P., and Self, J.G., 2010a, An assessment of in-place oil shale resources in the Green River Formation, Piceance Basin, Colorado, in U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment Team, eds., Oil-shale assessment of the Piceance Basin, Colo-rado: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–Y, chap. 1, 197 p.
Johnson, R.C., Mercier, T.J., Brownfield, M.E., and Self, J.G., 2010b, Assessment of in-place oil shale resource of the Green River Formation, Uinta Basin, Utah, in U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment Team, eds., Oil-shale assess-ment of the Uinta Basin, Utah and Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–BB, chap. 1, 162 p.
Southwest Wyoming Province Assessment Team, 2005, The Southwestern Wyoming Province—Introduction to a geologic assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-69-D, 36 p.
Stanfield, K.E., and Frost, I.C., 1949, Method of assaying oil shale by a modified Fischer retort: U.S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations 4477.
For Additional InformationSupporting geologic studies of the oil shale-bearing units,
assessment units, oil shale analyses, and the methodol ogy used in assessing the oil shale resources in the Greater Green River Basin are in progress. Assessment results are available at the USGS Central Energy Team website: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/ other/oil_shale/.
Contact InformationFor further information contact Ronald C. Johnson
([email protected]), T.J. Mercier ([email protected]), and Michael E. Brownfield ([email protected]).
LaClede Bed of the Laney Member of the Green River Formation, north rim of the Washakie Basin, Wyoming. Photograph by John R. Donnell.