Minerals Green River formation

Estimates of oil shale deposits by continent are given in Table 1 (2). Characteristics of many of the world s best known oil shales are summarized in Table 2 (3,4). Oil shale deposits in the United States occur over a wide area (Table 3). The most extensive deposits, covering ca 647,000 km (250,000 mi ), are the Devonian-Mississippian shales of the eastern United States (5). The richest U.S. oil shales are in the Green River formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Typical mineral and organic analyses for Green River oil shale are given in Table 4. 

Desborough G. A. (1975). Authigenic albite and potassium feldspar in the Green River formation, Colorado and Wyoming. Amer. Mineral, 60 235-239. 

SURDAM (R.C.) and PARKER (R.L.), 1972. Authigenic aluminosilicate minerals in the tuffaceous rock of the Green River Formation, Wyoming. Bull. Geol. Soc. Ame. fL3, 689-700. 

J. J. Fahey, Saline Minerals of the Green River Formation, Geological Survey Professional Paper 405, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1962. 

Fahey, J.J., 1962. Saline minerals in the Green River Formation. U.S. Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap., 405 1-50. 

The Green River Formation with its energy-rich oil shales and its remarkable collection of huge amounts of novel minerals is the product of a gigantic chemical process system which established itself in ancient lakes surrounding Utah s Uinta Mountains. Once established the chemical process system stabilized and maintained itself, repeating the same chemical processes continuously for millions of years on the raw materials entering the lake. 

The Wyoming deposits of Green River Formation oil shale received different stratigraphic names, but they show some striking similarities to the distribution in Colorado (9). The bottom section called the Tipton Shale Member is predominately clay-rich oil shale similar to that in Colorado. The next section, called the Wilkins Peak Member, contains dolomite-rich oil shale layers interspersed with layers of saline minerals, particularly trona, or with clastic deposits away from the depositional centers. The uppermost section, called the Laney Member, consists of dolomite-rich deposits formed during a reexpansion of ancient Gosuite Lake. 

J. W. Savage and D. Bailey, Economic Potential of the New Sodium Minerals Found in the Green River Formation, presented at 61st Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Los Angeles, Calif., Dec. 1—5, 1968. 

Mckelveyite has been described by Milton et al. from the fresh water lake beds of the Green River formation in Wyoming, U.S.A. The occurrences are in a uranium district, but are not associated with other uranium minerals. It is a unique carbonate as it contains significant quantities of rare-earth elements and may be related to rhapdophane. It does occur with another rare-earth mineral burbankite. Donnay and Donnay showed that mckelveyite was intergrown with ewaldite, another carbonate with a trace of uranium included. Donnay and Preston reported a structure for ewaldite. 

Milton C. et al. Mckelveyite, a new hydrous sodium barium rare-earth uranium carbonate mineral from the Green River Formation Wyoming. Am. Miner., 50, 1965, 593-612. 

These oil shales represent two trillion barrels of oil in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, and an additional one trillion barrels of oil of Devonian shale formation in the eastern United States. Eastern Devonian shale is quite different from western Green River shale. The noticeable differences are in geological age, kerogen structure, oil content, pyrite, and other mineral compositions. In the past, little effort has been focused on Devonian shales. However, the increasing role of eastern shales has now... 

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