Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Basement And Cover Structural Analysis Along The Eagle River Gorge, Sawatch Range, Colorado, Kaitlin Lee Askelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Sawatch Range within the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado exposes Paleoproterozoic basement and overlying Paleozoic sedimentary rocks with a complex history of ductile and brittle deformation.

The goal of this study is to conduct analyses of brittle structures that occur in the basement and cover units to determine geometric relationships between the structures, provide a detailed description of structures and refine a geologic history for structures along the basement-cover contact in the northeastern Sawatch Range along the Eagle River canyon and U.S. Highway 24 from Red Cliff to Gilman, Colorado. Paleoproterozoic basement rocks include the Cross Creek granite, diorites, …

The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale: Geologic History, Depositional Analysis, And Exploration Potential, Jessica D. Pair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) was deposited across southern Louisiana and Mississippi during the Upper Cretaceous. The study focuses on a core region containing vast deposits of Cretaceous-aged sediments that have economic importance for oil and gas exploration. This region has been conventionally drilled for decades, focusing on the recovery of the Cretaceous hydrocarbons. Explorers within this region had traditionally targeted the massive sand units of the Lower and Upper Tuscaloosa Group while neglecting the middle Tuscaloosa Marine Shale unit. With the onset of unconventional drilling technology, new explorers to the region have begun to delineate the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale’s …

Detection Of Sedimentary Depositional Cycles In The Salado Formation, Southeastern New Mexico, Scott Paul Milo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An abundance of evaporitic features is preserved throughout the approximately 2,000-foot-thick Salado formation that is present across west Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The formation and preservation of evaporitic features are largely influenced by hydrology, and so those found in the Salado represent an uninterrupted record of hydrogeologic conditions in what is now the southwestern United States during the late Permian. Because it is home to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) repository chamber, the salado has been the subject of countless studies ranging from areas of sedimentology, to geochemistry, to geotechnical engineering, to hydrology. However, until now there have …