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Executive summary--2002 assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the San Juan Basin Province, exclusive of Paleozoic rocks, New Mexico and Colorado: Chapter 1 in Total petroleum systems and geologic assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the San Juan Basin Province, exclusive of Paleozoic rocks, New Mexico and Colorado

In 2002, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated undiscovered oil and gas resources that have the potential for additions to reserves in the San Juan Basin Province (5022), New Mexico and Colorado (fig. 1). Paleozoic rocks were not appraised. The last oil and gas assessment for the province was in 1995 (Gautier and others, 1996). There are several important differences between the 1995 and 2002 assessments. The area assessed is smaller than that in the 1995 assessment. This assessment of undiscovered hydrocarbon resources in the San Juan Basin Province also used a slightly different approach in the assessment, and hence a number of the plays defined in the 1995 assessment are addressed differently in this report. After 1995, the USGS has applied a total petroleum system (TPS) concept to oil and gas basin assessments. The TPS approach incorporates knowledge of the source rocks, reservoir rocks, migration pathways, and time of generation and expulsion of hydrocarbons; thus the assessments are geologically based. Each TPS is subdivided into one or more assessment units, usually defined by a unique set of reservoir rocks, but which have in common the same source rock. Four TPSs and 14 assessment units were geologically evaluated, and for 13 units, the undiscovered oil and gas resources were quantitatively assessed.

Colorado;New Mexico

Mine and prospect map of the Manzano Wilderness, Torrance and Valencia counties, New Mexico

The U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Bureau of Mines conducted field investigations to evaluate the mineral resources of the Manzano Wilderness, Torrance and Valencia Counties, N. Mex., during 1980 and 1982. This map complements the mineral resource appraisal of the Manzano Wilderness (Maxwell and others, 1983). Field studies by the Bureau of Mines included a reconnaissance of mines, prospects, and mineralized areas. From workings within and near the wilderness, 107 samples were taken and analyzed.

New Mexico

Audiomagnetotelluric data, Taos Plateau Volcanic Field, New Mexico

The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting a series of multidisciplinary studies of the San Luis Basin as part of the Geologic framework of the Rio Grande Basins project. Detailed geologic mapping, high-resolution airborne magnetic surveys, gravity surveys, audiomagnetotelluric surveys, and hydrologic and lithologic data are being used to better understand the aquifers. This report describes a regional east-west audiomagnetotelluric sounding profile acquired in late July 2009 across the Taos Plateau Volcanic Field. No interpretation of the data is included.

New Mexico

Potential effects of projected pumping scenarios on future water-table elevations near Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, simulated different groundwater pumping scenarios from 2016 to 2050 to determine the potential future changes in groundwater levels in areas around the Kirtland Air Force Base Bulk Fuels Facility and an ethylene dibromide (EDB) plume. Projections of water supply and demand created by the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority were used to develop the future groundwater pumping scenarios used as inputs for a refined local-scale model within the updated Middle Rio Grande Basin regional model. The simulated water-table elevations in model cells that contain the EDB plume in the medium demand and medium supply scenario rose 29 feet (ft) until 2035, then remained within 10 ft of that elevation through 2050, whereas the water-table elevations in the high demand and low supply scenario rose about 26 ft until 2035 and then decreased by more than 10 ft. Simulated water-table elevations in the low demand and high supply scenario continued to rise throughout most of the future simulation period and peaked at about 44 ft over the 2016 water-table elevation. All of the scenarios ended the future simulation period with higher simulated water-table elevations than at the beginning of the future simulation period. Simulations that represented the potentially highest and lowest volume of groundwater pumping near the EDB plume by adjusting the spatial distribution of pumping had similar simulated water-table elevations as the nonadjusted scenarios, with maximum water-table elevation changes that only differed by about 2 ft from the nonadjusted scenarios. Consideration should be taken when using these model results to inform decisions because the model results are subject to uncertainty from many different sources, including uncertainty in the future pumping scenarios as well as the model itself because of the simplification of the hydrogeologic system.

New Mexico

Geology and oil and gas assessment of the Todilto Total Petroleum System, San Juan Basin Province, New Mexico and Colorado: Chapter 3 in Total petroleum systems and geologic assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the San Juan Basin Province, exclusive of Paleozoic rocks, New Mexico and Colorado

Organic-rich, shaly limestone beds, which contain hydrocarbon source beds in the lower part of the Jurassic Todilto Limestone Member of the Wanakah Formation, and sandstone reservoirs in the overlying Jurassic Entrada Sandstone, compose the Todilto Total Petroleum System (TPS). Source rock facies of the Todilto Limestone were deposited in a combined marine-lacustrine depositional setting. Sandstone reservoirs in the Entrada Sandstone were deposited in eolian depositional environments. Oil in Todilto source beds was generated beginning in the middle Paleocene, about 63 million years ago, and maximum generation of oil occurred in the middle Eocene. In the northern part of the San Juan Basin, possible gas and condensate were generated in Todilto Limestone Member source beds until the middle Miocene. The migration distance of oil from the Todilto source beds into the underlying Entrada Sandstone reservoirs was short, probably within the dimensions of a single dune crest. Traps in the Entrada are mainly stratigraphic and diagenetic. Regional tilt of the strata to the northeast has influenced structural trapping of oil, but also allowed for later introduction of water. Subsequent hydrodynamic forces have influenced the repositioning of the oil in some reservoirs and flushing in others. Seals are mostly the anhydrite and limestone facies of the Todilto, which thin to as little as 10 ft over the crests of the dunes. The TPS contains only one assessment unit, the Entrada Sandstone Conventional Oil Assessment Unit (AU) (50220401). Only four of the eight oil fields producing from the Entrada met the 0.5 million barrels of oil minimum size used for this assessment. The AU was estimated at the mean to have potential additions to reserves of 2.32 million barrels of oil (MMBO), 5.56 billion cubic feet of natural gas (BCFG), and 0.22 million barrels of natural gas liquids (MMBNGL).

Colorado;New Mexico

Ground-Water Hydrographs and 5-Year Ground-Water-Level Changes, 1984-93, for Selected Areas In and Adjacent to New Mexico

A cooperative observation-well monitoring program was begun in New Mexico in 1925 between the U.S. Geological Survey and the New Mexico State Engineer Office. The majority of the wells are located in New Mexico; however, a few are in Texas east of Curry and Roosevelt County, New Mexico, and in Colorado along the Rio Grande. The program presently includes 22 wells equipped with continuous water-level recorders and 34 monitoring areas in which selected wells are measured periodically, usually every 5 years, to record changes in ground-water levels. These monitoring areas are those where ground water is used in large quantities for irrigation, municipal, or industrial purposes. Water-level data and water-level changes computed from these data are used to determine areas of ground-water-level rises and declines. This information is necessary for management of ground-water resources in New Mexico. Included in this report are hydrographs of ground-water levels obtained from 22 wells equipped with continuous water-level recorders and maps of ground-water-level changes computed for a 5-year period in each of 34 monitoring areas. Well locations and ground-water-level data for a 5-year period are listed in tables for each monitoring area. Where available, plots of annual precipitation data for climatological stations within or adjacent to each monitoring area are included.

Open-File Report

Annual report to the Pecos River Commission on investigations being made in New Mexico and Texas by the United States Geological Survey in cooperation with the Pecos River Commission: calendar year 1976

This report describes investigations in New Mexico and Texas made by the Water Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Pecos River Commission during the 1976 calendar year and provides a summary of costs for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1976.

New Mexico;Texas

Geology, sequence stratigraphy, and oil and gas assessment of the Lewis Shale Total Petroleum System, San Juan Basin, New Mexico and Colorado: Chapter 5 in Total petroleum systems and geologic assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the San Juan Basin Province, exclusive of Paleozoic rocks, New Mexico and Colorado

The Lewis Shale Total Petroleum System (TPS) in the San Juan Basin Province contains a continuous gas accumulation in three distinct stratigraphic units deposited in genetically related depositional environments: offshore-marine shales, mudstones, siltstones, and sandstones of the Lewis Shale, and marginal-marine shoreface sandstones and siltstones of both the La Ventana Tongue and the Chacra Tongue of the Cliff House Sandstone. The Lewis Shale was not a completion target in the San Juan Basin (SJB) in early drilling from about the 1950s through 1990. During that time, only 16 wells were completed in the Lewis from natural fracture systems encountered while drilling for deeper reservoir objectives. In 1991, existing wells that penetrated the Lewis Shale were re-entered by petroleum industry operators in order to fracture-stimulate the Lewis and to add Lewis gas production onto preexisting, and presumably often declining, Mesaverde Group production stratigraphically lower in the section. By 1997, approximately 101 Lewis completions had been made, both as re-entries into existing wells and as add-ons to Mesaverde production in new wells. Based on recent industry drilling and completion practices leading to successful gas production from the Lewis and because new geologic models indicate that the Lewis Shale contains both source rocks and reservoir rocks, the Lewis Shale TPS was defined and evaluated as part of this U.S. Geological Survey oil and gas assessment of the San Juan Basin. Gas in the Lewis Shale Total Petroleum System is produced from shoreface sandstones and siltstones in the La Ventana and Chacra Tongues and from distal facies of these prograding clastic units that extend into marine rocks of the Lewis Shale in the central part of the San Juan Basin. Reservoirs are in shoreface sandstone parasequences of the La Ventana and Chacra and their correlative distal parasequences in the Lewis Shale where both natural and artificially enhanced fractures produce gas. The Lewis Continuous Gas Assessment Unit (AU 50220261) is thought to be self-sourced from and self-sealed by marine shales and mudstones deposited within the Lewis Shale that enclose clastic parasequences in the La Ventana and Chacra Tongues. The gas resource is thought to be a continuous accumulation sourced from the Lewis Shale throughout the depositional basin. In the Lewis Continuous Gas Assessment Unit (AU 50220261), for continuous gas resources, there is an F95 of 8,315.22 billion cubic feet of gas (BCFG) and an F5 of 12,282.31 BCFG, with a mean value of 10,177.24 BCFG. There is an F95 of 18.08 million barrels of natural gas liquids (MMBNGL) and an F5 of 47.32 MMBNGL, with a mean of 30.53 MMBNGL.

Colorado;New Mexico