Geology and geohydrology elements of the environmental research plan, BX In Situ Oil Shale Project, Rio Blanco County, Colorado

This report was prepared as a part of the overall environmental research plan for the BX In Situ Oil Shale Project. The BX In Situ Oil Shale Project is located in the central portion of the Piceance Creek Basin of northwestern Colorado. Within this basin is a section of oil shale bearing rocks in the Parachute Creek member of the Green River Formation commonly referred to as the leached zone which contains very large reserves of oil in place as oil shale. This section of leached zone has enough prmeability and porosity to permit in situ retorting of the oil shale contained therein without resorting to mining and/or other fracturing techniques. The purpose of the BX In Situ Oil Shale Project is to demonstrate the technical feasibility of using superheated steam at 1000/sup 0/F and 1500 psig as a heat carrying medium to retort oil shale in the leched zone in situ and to provide a mechanism for the recovery of this oil with minimum impact on the environment. More specifically, the oil shale will be retorted by injecting superheated steam into the leached zone through an array of injection wells and recovering the steam/water/oil and gas produced from the more » leached zone through an array of production wells. The environmental research plan is designed to determine the surface and subsurface effects of project operations in order to allow estimates of the environmental impacts of commercial oil shale development. To allow determination of project impacts, basic geologic and geohydrologic conditions were determined. « less