The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed an
assessment of the undiscovered oil and gas potential of the Wind
River Basin Province, which encompasses about 4.7 million
acres in central Wyoming. The assessment is based on the
geologic elements of each total petroleum system (TPS) defined
in the province, including hydrocarbon source rocks (source-rock
maturation, hydrocarbon generation, and migration), reservoir
rocks (sequence stratigraphy and petrophysical properties), and
hydrocarbon traps (trap formation and timing). Using this geologic
framework, the USGS defined three TPSs: (1) Phosphoria TPS,
(2) Cretaceous-Tertiary TPS, and (3) Waltman TPS. Within these
systems, 12 Assessment Units (AU) were defined and undiscovered
oil and gas resources were quantitatively estimated within 10
of the 12 AUs.
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