Chapter 5 Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, Northwestern Colorado

Click here to return to By Jesse G. Self, Ronald C. Johnson, Michael E. Brownfield, and Volume Title Page Tracey J. Mercier

Chapter 5 of 7 Oil Shale and Nahcolite Resources of the Piceance Basin, Colorado

By U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment Team

U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–Y

U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Department of the Interior KEN SALAZAR, Secretary

U.S. Geological Survey Marcia K. McNutt, Director

U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2010

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Suggested citation: Self, J.G., Johnson, R.C., Brownfield, M.E., and Mercier, T.J., 2010, Stratigraphic cross sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, northwestern Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–Y, chp. 5, 7 p.

ISBN: 1–4113–2668–2 iii

Contents

Introduction...... 1 Stratigraphy of the Green River Formation, Colorado and Utah...... 1 Cross Sections...... 1 References Cited...... 6

Plates

1. Detailed cross section of line 1...... link 2. Detailed cross section of line 2...... link 3. Detailed cross section of line 3...... link 4. Detailed cross section of line 4...... link 5. Detailed cross section of line 5...... link 6. Detailed cross section of line 6...... link 7. Detailed cross section of line 7...... link 8. Detailed cross section of line 8...... link 9. Detailed cross section of line 9...... link 10. Detailed cross section of line 10...... link 11. Detailed cross section of line 11...... link 12. Detailed cross section of line 12...... link 13. Detailed cross section of line 13...... link

Figures

1. Map showing location of the Piceance Basin, northwestern Colorado...... 2 2. Stratigraphic column for the oil shale zones of the Green River Formation...... 3 3. Stratigraphic column for the Piceance Basin, northwestern Colorado...... 4 4. Map showing locations of the 13 cross sections in the Piceance Basin, Colorado...... 5

Table

1. Names and definitions for the column headers for the spatial-data spreadsheet...... 6 Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, Northwestern Colorado

By Jesse G. Self, Ronald C. Johnson, Michael E. Brownfield, and Tracey J. Mercier

Introduction whereas the younger oil shale zones deposited in the lake are carbonate-rich and referred to as the Parachute Creek Member. These oil shale units grade marginward into marginal lacus- For several decades, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) trine rocks of the Douglas Creek and Anvil Points Members. collected cores, cuttings, and other subsurface data from bore- The oldest member of the Green River Formation is the Cow holes drilled to evaluate the oil shale deposits in the Eocene Ridge Member, which intertongues with the variegated mud- Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin of northwestern stones, sandstones, and siltstones of the underlying Wasatch Colorado (fig. 1). In Colorado, the Green River Formation Formation. The names Garden Gulch, Parachute Creek, and was deposited in Lake Uinta during early to middle Eocene Douglas Creek Members of the Green River Formation were time, with the richest oil shale deposits in the Garden Gulch first used by Bradley (1931); the name Anvil Points Member and Parachute Creek Members (fig. 2). It was from this area was first used by Donnell (1953); and the name Cow Ridge that data were collected and preserved for use by researchers Member was first used by Johnson (1984). The sandstones and and industry in anticipation of the time when Green River oil siltstones containing abundant volcanic debris that intertongue shale deposits would become an economically viable alternate with the upper part of the Green River Formation are referred source of unconventional fossil fuel. to as the Uinta Formation (Cashion and Donnell, 1974; see The types of data collected include (1) thousands of plate 13). Fischer (shale oil) assays (American Society for Testing and Materials, 1980) on cores and cuttings from rotary-drilled holes; (2) geophysical and lithologic logs of drill holes; and (3) measured sections from outcrops within the Piceance Cross Sections Basin. As part of the in-place assessment of the oil shale resources of the Green River Formation in the Piceance The 13 cross sections prepared for this assessment used Basin conducted by the USGS, subsurface stratigraphic cross the same stratigraphic contacts as were drawn in previous sections were created using various types of data for correla- studies (Pitman and Johnson, 1978; Pitman, 1979; Pitman tion. These cross sections are presented on plates 1–13 in this and others, 1989) in order for resource-assessment results to report. be comparable. In these new sections, we also: (1) separate the Green River oil shale-bearing strata into alternating lay- ers of oil-rich zones (R-zones) and oil-lean zones (L-zones), Stratigraphy of the Green River following Cashion and Donnell (1972), because they are recognizable in much of the Piceance Basin; and (2) distin- Formation, Colorado and Utah guish between the clay-rich zones (zones R-0 through L-1) within the Garden Gulch Member, and the carbonate-rich The Green River Formation consists of fine-grained zones (zones above L-1) within the Parachute Creek Member lacustrine and fluvial-lacustrine rocks that were deposited in (fig. 2). the Eocene Lake Uinta. The lake expanded early in its history, The cross sections (see fig. 4 for locations) were con- during the Long Point transgression (Johnson, 1985), to cover structed using 68 of the 780 oil-yield histograms created for much of the Piceance and Uinta Basins, as well as the inter- this assessment, geophysical logs collected from wells drilled vening Douglas Creek arch, an area between the two basins for oil and gas exploration, and 12 surface sections measured with low rates of subsidence. Lake Uinta remained a single from outcrops within the Piceance Basin; table 1 provides unbroken lake across both basins and the Douglas Creek arch information for the data used. The correlation datum for cross throughout most of its history, and most of the Green River sections 1–12 (pls. 1–12) is the top of the R-4 zone, and for Formation can be recognized in both basins. In the Piceance cross section 13 (pl. 13) the datum is the bottom of the R-5 Basin (fig. 3), the early stages of the lake are marked by clay- zone. A horizontal scale of 1 in. = 0.5 mi and a vertical scale rich oil shale zones referred to as the Garden Gulch Member, of 1.3 in. = 100 ft were selected to best accommodate the 2 Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, Northwestern Colorado

109°00' 108°00' 107°00'

41°00'

13 r

e Routt v i Moffat

n e e Steamboat r pa Rive Craig G Yam r Springs 40

Rangely 40

64 13

Rio Blanco 40°00' Meeker ver 139 Ri do ra o Garfield Piceance Col Basin Rifle Glenwood 70 Springs

Eagle

70 Pitkin

39°00' Grand Junction

Mesa Delta

0 50 MILES 50 Gunnison Gunnison Montrose Montrose 50

EXPLANATION Index map

Undivided Quaternary, Tertiary, County line Mesozoic, and Paleozoic

TERTIARY City, town Uinta Formation and undivided Tertiary

Green River Formation Colorado

Wasatch Formation and undivided lower Tertiary

Extrusive and intrusive igneous rocks CRETACEOUS Mesaverde Fm. and Mesaverde Group coal-bearing rocks

Figure 1. Geologic map of northwestern Colorado showing generalized outcrops of the Cretaceous Mesaverde Formation (Group) and the Eocene Wasatch, Green River, and Uinta Formations in the Piceance Basin. Modified after Brownfield and others (2000). Cross Sections 3

Age Unit

Correlation chart of stratigraphic nomenclature for oil shale zones

(part) Donnell and Blair, Dyni (1974) (1970); Cashion and

Uinita Formation Donnell (1972)

A-groove A-groove Upper Mahogany Mahogany zone Middle Lower zone B-groove B-groove Rich oil shale zone R-6 Zone 13 Lean oil shale zone L-5 Zone 12 Rich oil shale zone R-5 Zone 11 Lean oil shale zone L-4 Zone 10 Eocene Rich oil shale Parachute Creek Member zone R-4 Zone 9

Lean oil shale zone L-3 Zone 8 Parachute Creek Member (part) Rich oil shale Green River Formation zone R-3 Zone 7 Green River Formation (part) Lean oil shale zone L-2 Zone 6 Rich oil shale zone R-2 Zone 5 Lean oil shale zone L-1 Zone 4 Rich oil shale Zone 3 zone R-1 Lean oil shale zone L-0 Zone 2 Member Member Rich oil shale Zone 1 Garden Gulch Garden Gulch zone R-0 (part) Wasatch Formation

Figure 2. Stratigraphic nomenclature and correlation chart for oil-shale zones for the north-central part of the Piceance Basin, Colorado. This assessment uses the nomenclature of Donnell and Blair (1970) and Cashion and Donnell (1972) shown in yellow. 4 Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, Northwestern Colorado bed Long Point River Green Formation North

Uinta R-1 zone R-1 Formation Wasatch Wasatch Formation Anvil Points Member Wasatch FormationWasatch Top of Top Cretaceous R-0, L-0 zones Formation Fort Union

Garden Gulch Member Garden Mahogany zone Mahogany

zones

B-Groove

R-6 zone and

R-2, L-2, R-3, L-3 Cow Ridge Member, Uinta Formation Green River FormationGreen DATUM Parachute Creek Member 60,000 FEET 10 KILOMETERS 20,000 Vertical exaggeration x 40 Vertical 200 400 METERS 0 0 FEET 500 1,000 1,500

L-1 zone

Wasatch Wasatch Formation

L-5 zone L-5 R-4, L-4, R-5 zones R-5 L-4, R-4, oil shale zone

Top of Mahogany Top Creek Mbr. Creek

Douglas Creek Member Parachute South Stratigraphic column for the Piceance Basin, northwestern Colorado, showing the Wasatch, Fort Union, Green River, and Uinta Fort Union, Green River, Stratigraphic column for the Piceance Basin, northwestern Colorado, showing Wasatch, EXPLANATION

Variegated mudstone, sandstone, Variegated and siltstone rocks Volcanoclastic Carbonate-rich marginal lacustrine mudstone with ostracodal, oolitic, and stromatolitic limestones Freshwater lacustrine and paludal rocks with molluscs and thin coal beds Lean illitic oil shale Rich illitic oil shale Lean dolomitic oil shale Rich dolomitic oil shale with nahcolite and halite Disseminated nahcolite in oil shale Nahcolite and halite Figure 3. Formations and associated members. Cross Sections 5

108°30' 108°00’ R. 102 W. R. 101 W. R. 100 W. R. 99 W. R. 98 W. R. 97 W. R. 96 W. R. 95 W. R. 94 W. R. 93 W.

13 T. 2 N.

T. 1 N. 40°00’ 1

5 4 T. 1 S.

3 T. 2 S. 2

6 9 T. 3 S.

10 12 T. 4 S.

11 T. 5 S. 39°30' 8

T. 6 S. 7

T. 7 S.

T. 8 S.

R. 102 W. R. 101 W. R. 100 W. R. 99 W. R. 98 W. R. 97 W. R. 96 W. R. 95 W. R. 94 W.

EXPLANATION

Area underlain by the 0 12 MILES Mahogany bed

Colorado

Figure 4. Map showing locations of the 13 stratigraphic cross sections in the Piceance Basin, Colorado. 6 Stratigraphic Cross Sections of the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, Northwestern Colorado

Table 1. Names and deﬁnitions for the column headers for the spatial-data spreadsheet (Spatial_Information.xlsx). Column name Column deﬁnition USGSID Unique ID assigned by staff geologist COMPANY Name of the company or agency that drilled the borehole NAME Name of the borehole assigned by the company or agency that drilled it SECTION Section TOWNSHIP Township RANGE Range LATITUDE Latitude, in decimal degrees, North American Datum 1927, software-calculated, original record LONGITUDE Longitude, in decimal degrees, North American Datum 1927, software-calculated, original record COUNTY Name of county in Colorado DEPTH IN FEET Total depth of the borehole, in ft PLATE NUMBER The Piceance Basin cross section where that piece of data can be found

distances covered and the need for stratigraphic detail. Sources Donnell, J.R., 1953, Columnar section of rocks exposed of stratigraphic data include Johnson (1975) for the Long in Field Point measured section, and Johnson and others (1988) for the Conference in northwestern Colorado, Rocky Mountain Douglas Pass, Little Burma Road, and Tommy’s Draw sec- Association of Geologists Guidebook, Field Conference, tions. Measured sections at Yellow Creek, Spring Creek, and Northwestern Colorado, p. 14.

Donnell, J.R., and Blair, R.W., 1970, Resource appraisal of three rich oil-shale zones in the Green River Formation, References Cited Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado: Colorado School of Mines Quarterly, v. 65, p. 73–87.

American Society for Testing and Materials, 1980, Standard Dyni, J.R., 1974, Stratigraphy and nahcolite resources of the method of test for oil from oil shale: Annual Book of saline facies of the Green River Formation in northwest ASTM Standards, Part 25, Designation D 3904-80, Colorado; in Murray, D. Keith, ed., Guidebook to the p. 513–515. Energy Resources of the Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado, Bradley, W.H., 1931, Origin and microfossils of the oil shale Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, 25th Field of the Green River Formation of Colorado and Utah: U.S. Conference, p. 111–122. Geological Survey Professional Paper 168, 58 p. Johnson, R.C., 1975, Preliminary geologic map, oil-shale yield Brownﬁeld, M.E., Hettinger, R.D., and Johnson, E.A., 2000, histograms and stratigraphic sections, Long Point quad- A summary of the stratigraphy, coal resources, and coal-bed rangle, Garﬁeld County, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey methane potential of Northwest Colorado: U.S. Geological Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-688, scale 1:24,000 Survey Professional Paper 1625-B, p. I1–I25, (Two sheets with descriptive text).

Cashion, W.B., and Donnell, J.R., 1972, Chart showing Johnson, R.C., 1984, New names for units in the lower part correlation of selected key units in the organic-rich of the Green River Formation, Piceance Creek Basin, sequence of the Green River Formation, Piceance Creek Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1529-I, 20 p. Basin, Colorado, and Uinta Basin, Utah: U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigations Chart OC-65. Johnson, R.C., 1985, Early Cenozoic history of the Uinta and Cashion, W.B., and Donnell, J.R., 1974, Revision of nomen- Piceance Creek Basins, Utah and Colorado, with special clature of the upper part of the Green River Formation, reference to the development of Eocene Lake Uinta United Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado, and Eastern Uinta Basin, States: Rocky Mountain Section, Society of Economic Utah: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1394-G, 9 p. Paleontology and Mineralogy: Denver, Colo., p. 247–276. References Cited 7

Johnson, R.C., Nichols, D.J., and Hanley, J.H., 1988, Pitman, J.K., and Johnson, R.C., 1978, Isopach, structure Stratigraphic sections of lower Tertiary strata and charts contour, and resource maps of the Mahogany oil-shale zone, showing palynomorph and mollusc assemblages, Douglas Green River Formation, Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado: Creek arch area Colorado and Utah: U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Investigations Miscellaneous Field Investigations Map MF-1997, 2 sheets. Map MF-958, scale 1:126,720. Pitman, J.K., 1979, Isopach, structure contour, and resource Pitman, J.K., Wahl Pierce, Frances, and Grundy, W.D., 1989, maps of the R-6 oil-shale zone, Green River Formation, Thickness, oil-yield, and kriged resource estimates for the Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Eocene Green River Formation, Piceance Creek Basin, Miscellaneous Field Investigations Map MF-1069, scale Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investiga- 1:126,720. tions Chart OC-132.

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