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Oil & Gas

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As domestic and international energy demands increase, a more complete assessment of our available energy resources is necessary. New avenues of exploration, including the search for gas hydrates beneath the sea floor, will assist in the process of making informed decisions to address energy needs.
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Items below are listed from most recently updated to least recently updated.

These are results 1 through 18 of 18 matches.

Publication
Evolution and History of Incised Valleys: The Mobile Bay Model - USGS Fact Sheet
Description: Incised valleys along the Gulf coast commonly result from rivers eroding rapidly in response to a fall in sea level. As sea level rises, sediments fill incised valleys and form nearshore elongated sandbodies such as barrier islands. These sandbodies can be potential sites for hard-mineral accumulations and are modern analogues to buried sands in the ancient rock record with high potential of being oil and gas reservoirs. Processes that formed residual sediment accumulations may also help to predict the outcome of man's erosion mitigation and wetland nourishment efforts. Today, the geologic imprint of incised valleys across the continental shelf provides evidence of sea-level change over the past 18,000 years.
updated: 2004-03-02 pages include:

Publication
Gas (Methane) Hydrates -- A New Frontier - USGS Fact Sheet
Description: Methane trapped in marine sediments as a hydrate represents such an immense carbon reservoir that it must be considered a dominant factor in estimating unconventional energy resources; the role of methane as a 'greenhouse' gas also must be carefully assessed.
updated: 2004-03-02 pages include:

Publication
Lake Baikal - A Touchstone for Global Change and Rift Studies - USGS Fact Sheet
Description: The Lake Baikal rift system is a modern analogue for formation of ancient Atlantic-type continental margins. It tells us the first chapter in the story of how continents separate and ultimately develop into ocean basins like the Atlantic Ocean.
updated: 2004-03-02 pages include:

Publication
Seafloor Images Refine Petroleum Exploration Models - USGS Fact Sheet
Description: GLORIA mapping has shown that we need to think again about our conventional models for formation of deep-sea fans. Exploration for hydrocarbon accumulations in ancient fan environments may change dramatically as a consequence of our new understanding of deep-sea fan formation.
updated: 2004-03-02 pages include:

Publication
USGS OFR 03-122 - Cruise Summary For P-1-02-SC: Acoustic Imaging Of Natural Oil And Gas Seeps and Measurement of Dissolved Methane Concentration In Coastal Waters Near Pt. Conception, California
Description: Water-column acoustic anomalies and methane concentrations were documented in coastal waters surrounding Pt. Conception, California, in March 2002. The purpose of this survey, supported by the Minerals Management Service, was to locate active oil and gas seeps in the area as a background for further studies to determine hydrocarbon flux, mainly oil, into the environment.
updated: 2003-10-29 pages include:

Publication
USGS OFR 03-110 - Cruise Report for A1-02-SC: Southern California CABRILLO project, Earthquake Hazards Task
Description: A two-week marine geophysical survey obtained sidescan-sonar images and multiple sets of high-resolution seismic-reflection profiles in the southern California offshore area between Point Arguello and Point Dume. The data were obtained to support two project activities of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Coastal and Marine Geology (CMG) Program: (1) the evaluation of the geologic hazards posed by earthquake faults and landslides in the offshore areas of Santa Barbara Channel and western Santa Monica Basin and (2) determine the location of active hydrocarbon seeps in the vicinity of Point Conception as part of a collaborative study with the Minerals Management Service (MMS). The 2002 cruise, A1-02- SC, is the fourth major data-collection effort in support of the first objective (Normark et al., 1999a, b; Gutmacher et al., 2000). A cruise to obtain sediment cores to constrain the timing of deformation interpreted from the geophysical records is planned for the summer of 2003.
updated: 2003-10-01 pages include:

Publication
An Overview of Coastal Land Loss: With Emphasis on the Southeastern United States
Description: In states bordering the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, vast areas of coastal land have been destroyed since the mid 1800s as a result of natural processes and human activities. The physical factors that have the greatest influence on coastal land loss are reductions in sediment supply, relative sea level rise, and frequent storms, whereas the most important human activities are sediment excavation, river modification, and coastal construction. As a result of these agents and activities, coastal land loss is manifested most commonly as beach/bluff erosion and coastal submergence.
updated: 2003-08-20 pages include:

Publication
Subsurface Controls on Historical Subsidence Rates and Associated Wetland Loss in Southcentral Louisiana
Description: The Gulf Coast Basin is a region where subsidence and fault activation are common around large, mature oil and gas fields even though moderately deep hydrocarbon production has generally been disregarded as the primary cause. This project will test the hypothesis that long-term, large-volume oil and gas production in the Gulf Coast Basin has resulted in land-surface subsidence and activation of deep-seated faults around some fields.
updated: 2003-03-14 pages include:

Publication
Primary Causes of Wetland Loss at Madison Bay, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana - USGS Open File Report 03-060
Description: The Gulf Coast Basin is a region where subsidence and fault activation are common around large, mature oil and gas fields even though moderately deep hydrocarbon production has generally been disregarded as the primary cause. This project will test the hypothesis that long-term, large-volume oil and gas production in the Gulf Coast Basin has resulted in land-surface subsidence and activation of deep-seated faults around some fields.
updated: 2003-03-11 pages include:

Research Project
Subsidence and Sea-Level Rise in Southeastern Louisiana: Implications for Coastal Management and Restoration
Description: The Mississippi River delta plain is subject to the highest rate of relative sea-level rise (3 ft per century) of any region in the Nation largely due to rapid geologic subsidence. This collaborative study is responsible for developing an objective and reliable scientific database on subsidence and sea-level rise by conducting detailed studies within the Mississippi River delta plain.
updated: 2002-12-12 pages include:

Publication
Wetland Subsidence, Fault Reactivation, and Hydrocarbon Production in the U.S. Gulf Coast Region - USGS Fact Sheet 091-01
Description: Wetland losses are so extensive in the Gulf of Mexico Coast region of the United States that they represent critical concerns to government environmental agencies and natural resource managers.
updated: 2002-09-20 pages include:

Publication
Shallow Stratigraphic Evidence of Subsidence and Faulting Induced by Hydrocarbon Production in Coastal Southeast Texas - USGS Open File Report 01-274
Description: Wetland losses and their progressive conversion to open water around producing oil and gas fields in the Gulf Coast region have been attributed to a variety of natural and anthropogenic processes. Three large, mature hydrocarbon fields in coastal southeast Texas were examined to evaluate competing hypotheses of wetland losses and to characterize subaerial and submerged surfaces near reactivated faults and zones of subsidence.
updated: 2002-09-19 pages include:

Research Project
Subsidence and Fault Activation Related to Fluid Energy Production, Gulf Coast Basin
Description: The Gulf Coast Basin is a region where subsidence and fault activation are common around large, mature oil and gas fields even though moderately deep hydrocarbon production has generally been disregarded as the primary cause. This project will test the hypothesis that long-term, large-volume oil and gas production in the Gulf Coast Basin has resulted in land-surface subsidence and activation of deep-seated faults around some fields.
updated: 2002-09-18 pages include:

Research Project
Gas Hydrate at the USGS
Description: Gas hydrate is a crystalline solid formed of water and gas. It looks and acts much like ice, but it contains huge amounts of methane and it exists in very large quantities in marine sediments in a layer several hundred meters thick directly below the sea floor and in association with permafrost in the Arctic. It is important for three reasons: 1. It may become a major energy resource, 2. It has important effects on sea floor sediment stability, influencing collapse and landsliding, 3. The hydrate reservoir may have strong influence on climate, as methane is a significant greenhouse gas. This project seeks to learn to identify gas hydrate by remote sensing and to understand the processes that control methane hydrate in the natural environment, such as concentration into possibly extractable accumulations, change in strength of sediments and generation of overpressures, processes of seafloor mobilization, and processes allowing transfer of methane to the atmosphere.
updated: 2002-04-24 pages include:

Data Set
Global Inventory of Natural Gas Hydrate Occurance
Description: This updated global inventory reports on natural gas hydrate recovered from 20 places worldwide and includes 79 places where the presence of gas hydrate has been inferred from geophysical, geochemical, or geological evidence.
updated: 2001-01-09 pages include:

Research Project
Gas Hydrates in the Gulf of Mexico
Description: Investigation of potential gas-hydrate deposits and possible links between hydrate occurrence and sea-floor failures using remote-sensing technology.
updated: 1999-09-22 pages include:

Educational Materials
About Gas Hydrates and a USGS gas hydrate project
Description: Questions and answers about submarine gas hydrates: an ice-like crystalline solid formed of water and gas that is found in places under the sea floor and has important implications to techniques of deep-sea drilling and future energy supplies.
updated: 1999-03-08 pages include:

Publication
Hydrocarbons in Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary
Description: Description and interpretation of hydrocarbons associated with fluid venting processes in Monterey Bay, California.
updated: 1999-02-17 pages include:

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Coastal and Marine Geology Program > Online Science Resource Locator > Oil & Gas