Fact Sheet 2013–3115
AbstractA recent U.S. Geological Survey analysis of the Green River Formation of the Piceance Basin in western Colorado shows that about 920 and 352 billion barrels of oil are potentially recoverable from oil shale resources using oil-yield cutoffs of 15 and 25 gallons per ton (GPT), respectively. This represents most of the high-grade oil shale in the United States. Much of this rich oil shale is found in the dolomitic Parachute Creek Member of the Green River Formation and is associated with the saline minerals nahcolite and halite, or in the interval where these minerals have been leached by groundwater. The remaining high-grade resource is located primarily in the underlying illitic Garden Gulch Member of the Green River Formation. Of the 352 billion barrels of potentially recoverable oil resources in high-grade (≥25 GPT) oil shale, the relative proportions present in the illitic interval, non-saline R-2 zone, saline-mineral interval, leached interval (excluding leached Mahogany zone), and Mahogany zone were 3.1, 4.5, 36.6, 23.9, and 29.9 percent of the total, respectively. Only 2 percent of high-grade oil shale is present in marginal areas where saline minerals were never deposited. |
First posted January 21, 2014 For additional information contact: Part or all of this report is presented in Portable Document Format (PDF). For best results viewing and printing PDF documents, it is recommended that you download the documents to your computer and open them with Adobe Reader. PDF documents opened from your browser may not display or print as intended. Download the latest version of Adobe Reader, free of charge. |
Birdwell, J.E., Mercier, T.J., Johnson, R.C., Brownfield, M.E., and Dietrich, J.D., 2014, In-place oil shale resources in the saline-mineral and saline-leached intervals, Parachute Creek Member of the Green River Formation, Piceance Basin, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2013–3115, 6 p., https://dx.doi.org/10.3133/fs20133115.
ISSN 2327-6916 (print)
ISSN 2327-6932 (online)