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U.S. Geological Survey

Digital Data Series DDS–69–U

Revised April 2010

National Oil and Gas Assessment Project:

Geologic Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas in the 

Powder River Basin, Wyoming and Montana

By U.S. Geological Survey Powder River Basin Assessment Team 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

KEN SALAZAR, Secretary

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Marcia K. McNutt, Director

For sale by U.S. Geological Survey Information Services

Box 25286, Building 810

Denver Federal Center

Denver, CO 80225-0086

Telephone (303) 202-4200

For more information about the U.S. Geological Survey and its products:

Telephone 1-888-ASK-USGS

URL: http://www.usgs.gov/

Introduction

The purpose of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Oil and Gas Assessment is to develop geologically based hypotheses regarding the potential for 

additions to oil and gas reserves in priority areas of the United States. The U.S. 

Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed an assessment of the undiscovered 

oil and gas potential of the Powder River Basin Province which encompasses about 

21.8 million acres in northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana.

The assessment is based on the geologic elements of each total petroleum system 

(TPS) defined in the province, including hydrocarbon source rocks (source-rock 

maturation, hydrocarbon generation, and migration), reservoir rocks (sequence 

stratigraphy and petrophysical properties), and hydrocarbon traps (trap formation and timing). Using this geologic framework, the USGS defined six TPSs: (1) 

Pennsylvanian-Permian Composite TPS, (2) Mowry TPS, and (3) Niobrara TPS, 

(4) Paleozoic-Mesozoic Composite TPS, (5) Tertiary-Upper Cretaceous Coalbed 

Methane TPS, and (6) Cretaceous Biogenic Gas TPS. Within these systems, 11 

Assessment Units (AU) were defined and undiscovered oil and gas resources were 

quantitatively estimated.
Contact Information

This volume is one of a series of products resulting from the National Oil and Gas 

Assessment project of the U.S. Geological Survey. Inquiries about this CD-ROM 

or the project should be addressed to:

Christopher J. Schenk, Project Chief

U.S. Geological Survey

Box 25046, Mail Stop 939

Denver Federal Center

Denver, CO 80225-0046

Telephone: (303) 236-5796

E-mail: schenk@usgs.gov

Disclaimer

This Compact Disc-Read Only Memory (CD–ROM) publication was prepared by 

an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government 

nor any agency thereof, nor any of its employees, make any warranty, expressed or 

implied, or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed 

in this report, or represent that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. 

Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade 

name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or 

imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data and software published on this CD–

ROM have been used by the USGS, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by 

the USGS as to the accuracy of the data and related materials and (or) the functioning of the software. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, 

and no responsibility is assumed by the USGS in the use of these data, the software, or related materials.

Using This CD

The descriptive and interpretive text chapters of this volume are in PDF format. 

Use Acrobat Reader Version 7.0 or later to access and these chapters.

Contained on this CD–ROM are tabular data and graphical data in support of the 

assessment. The chapter text PDF contains links to the data and images. Data-table 

files are presented as tab-delimited text files (.tab files), usable in spreadsheet and 

database software. Graphical and summary-table files are presented as portable 

document format files (.pdf files).

GIS information is presented in the Spatial folder and its subfolders that contain 

the spatial data and documentation.

The Spatial/Doc folder contains metadata for the Powder River Basin spatial data 

in .htm format. The spatial/shape folder contains ArcView/ArcGIS shapefiles.
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Contents of This CD–ROM

When the CD–ROM is opened, the following folders appear on the screen:

OPEN_FIRST—from OPEN_FIRST.pdf in this folder, navigate to the 

ReadMe file and Assessment Reports.

READ_ME—you can access the ReadMe file from this folder also.

REPORTS—listing of, and links to, the chapters, plus the tabular data.

SPATIAL—folder containing files for the GIS data and metadata.

There are several routes to the information in this volume.

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