Oil shale sample locations and analyses, southwest Wyoming and northwest Colorado

As part of their oil shale research and technology activities, the Western Research Institute (WRI) and its predecessor federal organizations have accumulated oil shale richness data, lithologic data, and x-ray diffraction mineral data for nearly four decades. A large portion of these data pertains to oil shales and associated rocks of the Eocene Green River Formation in southwest Wyoming and adjacent parts of Colorado. Samples were obtained from the Green River Basin of Wyoming and the Washakie and Sand Wash Basins of Wyoming and Colorado. Plate I shows the location of each sample set, and Tables 1 and 2 give information on sample type, precise location, company name, well name, assay type, and assay and lithology data file numbers for each sample. The principal type of data available for the samples listed in the tables is Fischer assay analyses. A qualitative oil yield test (Stanfield, 1953), called the test tube method, was routinely applied to drill cutting samples as a screening procedure to eliminate barren or very lean samples from Fischer assay, with the cutoff nominally set at 3 gallons of oil per ton. Tabulations for most wells contain both test tube and Fischer assay results. Additional types of data,more » available primarily from cores, are lithologic descriptions and x-ray diffraction mineral identifications. The assay results and lithologic descriptions referred to in the tables are filed by SBR numbers (Shape and Bitumen Research numbers - a designation established in the 1940's) at both the Western Research Institute and the Geological Survey of Wyoming, both in Laramie, Wyoming. Both files are open for inspection to the public.« less