The Green River Formation that characterizes much of the Green River Basin hosts thick sequences of organic carbon-rich shale (oil shale), extractable pockets of natural gas, and bedded trona (Na3[CO3][HCO3] × 2H2O), the extraction or mining of which can mobilize elements that could potentially affect the function and health of ecosystems in the basin. In an ongoing effort to develop methods for assessing element mobility in the basin, the USGS has sampled soils from the three main members of the Green River Formation (Laney Shale, Wilkins Peak, and Tipton Shale), and contracted with XRAL Laboratory, Canada, to conduct mass spectrometry analyses of the soils for bulk and trace elements. Soils were extracted by using a method that best simulates the type of weathering that occurs in a semi-arid climate characteristic of the study area.
Objectives
- Provide geochemical data to the Mineral Resources Environmental Assessment on trona resources in the Green River Basin.
- Provide valuable geochemical data on soils and weathering profiles of Green River Formation to USGS biologists working in the WLCI (this task is being partially supported by Energy Resource’s Oil Shale Assessment Project).
Products Completed in FY2011
- A final report was outlined and will be completed in FY2012.
Products Completed in FY2010
- Initial sample preparations and analyses; products to follow in FY2011.
Products Completed in FY2009
- Tuttle, M.L., 2009, A collection of chemical, mineralogical, and stable isotopic compositional data for Green River oil shale from depositional center cores in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2009-1274, 18p.
