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Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Mowry Shale and Associated Strata in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming

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Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Mowry Shale and Associated Strata in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming National and Global Petroleum Assessment Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Mowry Shale and Associated Strata in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming By Thomas M. Finn Pamphlet to accompany Scientific Investigations Map 3476 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2021 For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment—visit https://www.usgs.gov or call 1–888–ASK–USGS. For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit https://store.usgs.gov/. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner. Suggested citation: Finn, T.M., 2021, Stratigraphic cross sections of the Mowry Shale and associated strata in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3476, 1 sheet,14-p. pamphlet, https://doi.org/ 10.3133/ sim3476. Associated data for this publication: Finn, T.M., 2021, Tops file for the Mowry Shale and associated strata in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9Y7SLB6. ISSN 2329-132X (online) iii Contents Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................1 Depositional Setting ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1 Stratigraphy ....................................................................................................................................................4 Cloverly Formation ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4 Thermopolis Shale ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������5 Muddy Sandstone .................................................................................................................................6 Mowry Shale..........................................................................................................................................6 Frontier Formation.................................................................................................................................6 Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................................11 References Cited..........................................................................................................................................11 Figures 1. Map of the Rocky Mountain region showing locations of Laramide basins ......................2 2. Index map of the Wind River Basin ...........................................................................................3 3. Correlation chart of Lower and lowermost Upper Cretaceous rocks in the Wind River Basin �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4 4. Type log of Lower and lowermost Upper Cretaceous rocks in the southeastern part of the Wind River Basin .......................................................................................................5 5. Map showing approximate extent of the Mowry Sea (Western Interior Seaway) in North America during early Cenomanian .............................................................................7 6. Isopach map of the Mowry Shale in the Wind River Basin ���������������������������������������������������8 7. Isopach map of the Shell Creek Shale equivalent strata .......................................................9 8. Isopach map of the upper siliceous part of the Mowry Shale ��������������������������������������������10 iv Conversion Factors U.S. customary units to International System of Units Multiply By To obtain Length inch (in.) 2.54 centimeter (cm) inch (in.) 25.4 millimeter (mm) foot (ft) 0.3048 meter (m) mile (mi) 1.609 kilometer (km) Area square mile (mi2) 2.590 square kilometer (km2) International System of Units to U.S. customary units Multiply By To obtain Length centimeter (cm) 0.3937 inch (in.) millimeter (mm) 0.03937 inch (in.) meter (m) 3.281 foot (ft) kilometer (km) 0.6214 mile (mi) Area square kilometer (km2) 0.3861 square mile (mi2) Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Mowry Shale and Associated Strata in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming By Thomas M. Finn was cored and logged by the USGS in the southeastern part of Introduction the basin (Kirschbaum and others, 2019). Both lines originate at Sheldon Dome in the northwestern part of the basin and The Wind River Basin is a large northwest-trending end near Bates Creek in the extreme southeastern part of the structural and sedimentary basin that formed in the Rocky basin (fig. 2, and map sheet). The northern line extends from Mountain foreland during the Laramide orogeny in latest Sheldon Dome east along the northern margin of the basin Cretaceous through early Eocene. The basin encompasses to Madden anticline, then southeast to Tepee Flats and Hells 2 about 7,400 square miles (mi ) in central Wyoming and is Half Acre, then along the southwest margin of the Casper bounded by the Washakie, Owl Creek, and Bighorn uplifts arch to Bates Creek (fig. 2 and map sheet). The southern line on the north, the Casper arch on the east, the Granite Moun- extends from Sheldon Dome southeast to Riverton Dome and tains uplift on the south, and the Wind River uplift on the along the southern margin of the basin, then southeast along west (fig. 1). the northeast margin of the Rattlesnake Hills to Bates Creek The first commercial oil well completed in the Wind River (fig. 2 and map sheet). The stratigraphic interval extends Basin was drilled near an oil seep in 1884 at Dallas Dome from the uppermost part of the Upper Jurassic Morrison about 8 miles (mi) southeast of the present-day town of Lander Formation to the basal part of the Upper Cretaceous Frontier (fig. 2) (Biggs and Espach, 1960). Since then, many important Formation (fig. 3). The datum is the Clay Spur Bentonite Bed, conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources have a distinctive bed at the top of the Upper Cretaceous Mowry been discovered and produced from reservoirs ranging in age Shale. This datum was selected because it is easily identified from Mississippian through Tertiary (fig. 2) (Keefer, 1969; Fox on most well logs and is present throughout the basin (fig. 4 and Dolton, 1989, 1996; De Bruin, 1993; Johnson and others, and map sheet) (Finn, 2021). 1996, 2007). It has been suggested that the Mowry Shale is an important source rock for many of these accumulations (Geis, 1923; Schrayer and Zarrella, 1963, 1966, 1968; Nixon, 1973; Burtner and Warner, 1984; Meissner and others, 1984; Depositional Setting Davis and others, 1989; Surdam and others, 2010). With recent technological advances and success in horizontal drilling and During the Late Jurassic and Cretaceous, the part of multistage fracture stimulation, the Mowry Shale is considered Wyoming that is now the Wind River Basin was located in the an important continuous (unconventional) shale oil and shale Western Interior Basin, an elongate north-south foreland basin, gas objective in other Rocky Mountain basins (Sterling and oth- that developed to the east of the tectonically active Cordilleran ers, 2009; Surdam and others, 2010; Sterling, 2013; Sterling and highlands of western North America (DeCelles, 2004). From Grau, 2014; Finley, 2017). the Albian to Maastrichtian (latest Early Cretaceous to Late The stratigraphic cross sections presented in this report Cretaceous), the foreland basin was periodically flooded by were constructed as part of a project carried out by the the Western Interior Seaway (WIS), a broad epicontinental sea U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to characterize and evalu- that developed in response to foreland basin subsidence and ate the undiscovered continuous (unconventional) oil and eustatic sea-level fluctuations (Steidtmann, 1993). At its maxi- gas resources of the Mowry Shale in the Wind River Basin. mum extent, the WIS extended for more than 3,000 mi from The purpose of the cross sections is to show the stratigraphic the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico (Kauffman, 1977). relationship of the Mowry Shale and associated Lower and Kauffman and Caldwell (1993) identified nine second-order lowermost Upper Cretaceous strata. transgressive-regressive marine cycles for the Cretaceous. Two cross sections were constructed using (1) borehole The most widespread cycle was the Greenhorn Cycle during geophysical logs from 41 wells drilled for oil and gas the Cenomanian and Turonian. The Mowry Shale was depos- exploration and production and (2) one research well that ited during the initial stages of the Greenhorn transgression 2 Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Mowry Shale and Associated Strata in the Wind River Basin, Wyoming 112 110 108 106 104 102 Williston Basin belt Bull 46 Crazy Mountains Miles thrust Basin Mountains Reed Point City syncline NORTH DAKOTA Basin arch SOUTH DAKOTA
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