Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Try the next-generation Data Catalog at catalog-beta.data.gov and help shape it with your feedback.

  • Feedback

    • Green River Oil Shale Resources Database

    Metadata Updated: January 7, 2026

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed a comprehensive assessment of in-place oil in oil shales in the Eocene Green River in the Greater Green River Basin, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. A database was compiled that includes about 47,000 Fischer assays from 186 core holes and 240 rotary drill holes. Most of the oil yield data were analyzed by the former U.S. Bureau of Mines oil shale laboratory in Laramie, Wyoming, and some analyses were made by private laboratories. Total in-place resources for the three assessed units in the Green River Formation are: (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, for a total of 1.44 trillion barrels of oil in place. This compares with estimated in-place resources for the Piceance Basin of Colorado of 1.53 trillion barrels and estimated in-place resources for the Uinta Basin of Utah and Colorado of 1.32 trillion barrels. Click here to return to Main Contents

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date January 7, 2026
    Metadata Updated Date January 7, 2026

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date January 7, 2026
    Metadata Updated Date January 7, 2026
    Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
    Maintainer
    Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_66140c93d34e6334665301cb
    Data Last Modified 2024-04-08T00:00:00Z
    Category geospatial
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 010:12
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id a04adc7b-d81b-4cc8-a144-a1f985fc52f9
    Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
    Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -111.0059, 40.4469, -103.3594, 44.7779
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash a653de573b5d18a325f8a17886d4394a3c4fa3ba983978fc9ba80593f07dd200
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -111.0059, 40.4469, -111.0059, 44.7779, -103.3594, 44.7779, -103.3594, 40.4469, -111.0059, 40.4469}

    Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.