U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Fact Sheet 2011–3063

June 2011

Oil Shale Assessment Project Fact Sheet

Assessment of In-Place Oil Shale Resources of the 

Green River Formation, Greater Green River Basin in 

Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah

Printed on recycled paper

Introduction

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently (2011) 

completed an assessment of in-place oil shale resources, 

regardless of grade, in the Eocene Green River Formation of 

the Greater Green River Basin in southwestern Wyoming, 

northwestern Colorado, and northeastern Utah (fig. 1). Green 

River Formation oil shale also is present in the Piceance Basin 

of western Colorado and in the Uinta Basin of eastern Utah 

and western Colorado, and the results of these assessments are 

published separately (Johnson and others, 2010a, 2010b). No 

attempt was made to estimate the amount of oil that is economically recoverable because there has not yet been an economic 

method developed to recover the oil from Green River Formation 

oil shale. 

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CARBON

GRAND

GARFIELD

FREMONT

DAGGETT

EAGLE

JACKSON

LINCOLN

MOFFAT

NATRONA

RIO BLANCO

Routt

Sublette

SUMMIT

Sweetwater

TETON

UINTA

UINTAH DUCHESNE

0

-2000

-4000

-2000

0

2000

4000

0

2000

-2000

-4000 -6000

4000

6000

-8000

-6000

-4000

-2000

-2000

-8000

-6000

-4000

0

-2000

0

2000

0 2000

4000

-2000

-4000

-8000

-6000

-4000

-2000

0

4000

2000

4000

6000

2000

6000

111° 110° 109° 108° 107°

40°

41°

42°

43°

UTAH 

WYOMING

COLORADO

Sandy

Bend arch

Hoback

Basin

SAND WASH

BASIN

WASHAKIE

BASIN

Great Divide

Basin

RIVER

BASIN

GREEN

Cherokee ridge

Wamsutter arch

Moxa arch

Rock Springs uplift

GREEN

A Figure 2 A’

WYOMING THRUST BELT

 Granite

Mountains

Rawlins

uplift

SIERRA 

MADRE

PARK

RANGE

Uinta

Mountains

AXIAL

BASIN

UPLIFT

Wind

River

Mountains

La Barge

platform

Pinedale

anticline

Oil shale-bearing rocks

Greater Green River Basin

Outcrop of Mesaverde Group

Contours on top of Mesaverde

 Group (in feet)

County boundaries

! Drillhole with oil shale information

0 10 20 30

0 10 20 30

40 MILES

40 KILOMETERS

EXPLANATION

Figure 1. Map showing 

boundary (in red) of the Greater 

Green River Basin in Wyoming, 

Colorado, and Utah, which 

incorporates the Green River, 

Great Divide, Washakie, and Sand 

Wash Basins. Boundary of the 

Greater Green River Basin is the 

same as that for the Southwest 

Wyoming Province (Southwest 

Wyoming Province Assessment 

Team, 2005). Also shown are 

county lines, townships, major 

structures and uplifts, drill holes 

with oil shale information, areas 

underlain by oil shale-bearing 

rock, and location of cross section 

in figure 2. Structure contour map 

on the top of the Mesaverde Group 

is from Finn and others (2005).
Methodology

Oil yields were measured using the Fischer assay method, 

a standardized laboratory test for determining the oil yield from 

oil shale that has been almost universally used to determine 

oil yields for Green River Formation oil shales (Stanfield and 

Frost, 1949; American Society for Testing and Materials, 1980). 

Fischer assay does not necessarily measure the maximum amount 

of oil that an oil shale can produce, and there are retorting 

methods that yield more oil. However, the oil yields achieved 

by other methods typically are reported as a percentage of the 

Fischer assay oil yield; thus Fischer assay still is considered 

the standard by which other methods are compared. In this 

assessment, a spatial interpolation and extrapolation method for 

producing resource maps and computing resource volumes was 

used—the Radial Basis Function (RBF) in ArcGIS GeoStatistical Analyst [(Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. 

(ESRI), Redlands, Calif., 2006, version 9.2)].

Resource Summary

The three units of the Green River Formation assessed 

here, in ascending order, are the Tipton Shale Member, the 

Wilkins Peak Member, and the LaClede Bed of the Laney 

Member (fig. 2). Note that the boundaries of the assessment 

units, particularly those for LaClede Bed and Wilkins Peak 

assessment units vary stratigraphically across the basin. Total 

in-place resources are estimated at 1.44 trillion barrels of oil 

divided among the three assessed units as follows: (1) Tipton 

Shale Member, 362,816 million barrels of oil (MMBO); 

(2) Wilkins Peak Member, 704,991 MMBO; and (3) LaClede 

Bed of the Laney Member, 377,184 MMBO. Figure 3 shows 

total in-place oil in each 6-mile-square township for all three 

assessed units combined. This result compares with in-place 

resource estimates of 1.53 trillion barrels for the Piceance Basin 

of Colorado and of 1.32 trillion barrels for the Uinta Basin of 

Utah and Colorado. The assessed area of the Greater Green 

River Basin, about 5,500 mi2, is about 1.4 times larger than the 

assessed area of the Uinta Basin (3,834 mi2) and more than four 

times larger than the assessed area of the Piceance Basin 

(1,335 mi2

). Thus, the oil shale deposits of the Greater Green 

River Basin are the lowest grade of the three basins that contain 

Green River Formation oil shale.

1.400

1.600

1.700

1.800

1.900

1,300

1,200

1,100

Tipton Shale

Member

0

0

0

0

0 0 500

500

500 500

500 500

1,000 1,000

1,000 1,000

1,000

1,000

11.5 Miles

5.7 Miles

1.0 Miles

9.5 Miles

50.5 Miles 5.3 Miles

1,500

1,500

1,500 1,500

1,500 1,500

2,000

2,500

2,000

2,000 2,000

2,000

2,000

2,500

3,000

2,500

3,000

3,500

Wilkins

Peak

Member

Cathedral

Bluffs

Tongue

of

Wasatch

Formation 

Cathedral

Bluffs

Tongue

of

Wasatch

Formation 

?

?

?

?

LaClede Bed

 of Laney

Member LaClede Bed of Laney Member

Hartt Cabin

Bed of

Laney Member

GREEN

RIVER

FORMATION

Mixed tan or gray freshwater lacustrine 

and sandstone deposits and gray or green 

flood-plain mudstone andsandstone deposits. 

Some volcanic debris in Hartt Cabin Bed 

EXPLANATION

ROCK

SPRINGS

UPLIFT 

WASHAKIE

BASIN

GREEN RIVER BASIN

A

A

Red flood-plain deposits Cyclic salt water lacustrine oil shale,

 evaporite, and mudflat deposits

Scheggs Bed

Rife Bed

‘

Saltwater lacustrine (rich) oil shale deposits

Freshwater lacustrine (lean) oil shale deposits

Trona bed in Wilkins Peak Member

Figure 2. East-west cross section 

showing stratigraphic boundaries of the 

three oil shale units assessed (heavy 

black outlines) and related stratigraphic 

units. Note that the boundaries of the 

Wilkins Peak Member and the LaClede 

Bed of the Laney Member of the Green 

River Formation assessment units vary 

stratigraphically across the basin. 

Vertical lines are drillholes showing 

depths, in feet.
R 117 W R 116 W R 115 W R 114 W R 113 W R 112 W R 111 W R 110 W R 109 W R 108 W R 107 W R 106 W R 105 W R 104 W R 103 WR 102 W R 101 W R 100 W R 99 W R 98 W R 97 W R 9

R 115 W

T

30

N

T

29

N

T

28

N

R 118 W

R 100 W R 

R 105 W

R 110 W

2,064 2,652 4,814 3,248 5,200 30 717 708 530 4

1,333 5,669 11,308 12,130 11

4,448 5,203 6,392 11,903 16,929 18,105 4,591

3,620 12,331 13,419 13,804 11,

5,861 7,862 10,509 14,868 18,891 19,158 16,598 5,322 740

4,236 596 42 7,551 14,031 14,342 13,767 10,

6,052 8,655 13,368 17,252 18,500 18,811 13,041

19,058 19,023 11,443 1,814 1 4,935 10,000 11,028 10,915 10,

7,005 8,539 13,797 17,787

6,963 9,276 13,203 18,391 21,167 23,099 18,075 2,851 2,015247 5,164 7,301 8,03

6,942 8,992 12,067 17,318 20,676 20,865 12,453 6,510 13 4,104372 6,00

8,672 9,687 13,298 19,240 21,977 17,109 14,528 1,734 373 1,73

6,324

10,448 16,210 20,943 15,718 11,564 787 5,401 6,534 7,017

12,656 13,542 12,971 5,545 5,053 6,048 8,025 10,565

7,252 9,044 11,069 12,273 12,129 5,980 4,035 5,012

4,362 6,608 9,045 10,844 8,957 9,437 6,253 3,762

7,574 6,028 6,111 4,625 782 3,493 4,539 6,564 2,872

4,231 6,652 5,989 4,916 4,286 3,119 189 1,480 2,594 3,115

3,233 3,156 3,181 2,965 474 501 1,541 2,775 3,688

2,928 1,508 1,798 1,527 1,773 122 219 1,350 2,810

1,723 765 635 184 1,550 0

118 47

110°30' 110°00' 109°30' 109°00' 108°30' 

42°30'

42°00'

41°30'

41°00'

0 6 12 MILES

WYOMING

0 5 10 KILOMETERS

COLORADO

WYOMING

UTAH

EXPLANA

> 20,00015,000 – 20,00010,000 – 15,000

Township summaries, oil yield—in 

5,000 – 10,000

Figure 3. Map showing total in-place oil, in millions of barrels, for each township assessed in the Greater Green River Basin, W
REFERENCES CITED

American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), 1980, 

Standard method of test for oil from oil shale: Annual Book 

of ASTM Standards, Part 25, Designation D 3904–80, p. 

513–515.

Finn, T. M., Johnson, R. C., and Roberts, S. B., 2005, The 

Mesaverde-Lance-Fort Union composite Total Petroleum 

System, Southwestern Wyoming Province: U.S. Geological 

Survey Digital Data Series DDS-69-D, Chapter 10, 33 p.

Johnson, R.C., Mercier, T.J., Brownfield, M.E., Pantea, M.P., 

and Self, J.G., 2010a, An assessment of in-place oil shale 

resources in the Green River Formation, Piceance Basin, 

Colorado, in U.S. Geological Survey Oil Shale Assessment 

Team, eds., Oil-shale assessment of the Piceance Basin, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–Y, 

chap. 1, 197 p.

Johnson, R.C., Mercier, T.J., Brownfield, M.E., and Self, J.G., 

2010b, Assessment of in-place oil shale resource of the Green 

River Formation, Uinta Basin, Utah, in U.S. Geological 

Survey Oil Shale Assessment Team, eds., Oil-shale assessment of the Uinta Basin, Utah and Colorado: U.S. Geological 

Survey Digital Data Series DDS–69–BB, chap. 1, 162 p.

Southwest Wyoming Province Assessment Team, 2005, The 

Southwestern Wyoming Province—Introduction to a geologic 

assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources: U.S. 

Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-69-D, 36 p.

Stanfield, K.E., and Frost, I.C., 1949, Method of assaying oil 

shale by a modified Fischer retort: U.S. Bureau of Mines 

Report of Investigations 4477.

For Additional Information

Supporting geologic studies of the oil shale-bearing units, 

assessment units, oil shale analyses, and the methodology used 

in assessing the oil shale resources in the Greater Green River 

Basin are in progress. Assessment results are available at the 

USGS Central Energy Team website: http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/

other/oil_shale/.

Contact Information

For further information contact Ronald C. Johnson 

(rcjohnson@usgs.gov), T.J. Mercier (tmercier@usgs.gov), and 

Michael E. Brownfield (mbrownfield@usgs.gov).

LaClede Bed of the Laney Member of the Green River Formation, north rim of the Washakie Basin, 

Wyoming. Photograph by John R. Donnell.