Hydrocarbons of the Uinta Basin of Utah and Colorado: Review of geology and field work; survey of bitumen analyses and extraction methods

The following discussion is partly from abstracts of the work of other investigators and partly from data obtained by the writer in personal studies of the Uinta Basin of Utah and Colorado. The object above all else has been to give concisely such data as seemed pertinent or interesting, and this will account for some of the apparently unrelated statements and a certain lack of continuity. The investigations made thus far have brought out information that it seems worth while to make public, as investigators may find it of some value in similar studies. An attempt has been made to give something of the general geology of the region, and this material is chiefly a resume or abstract of the publications of other authors. The present author had neither the time nor the geologic training required for a detailed field study. Some comments regarding the widespread occurrence of the tar sands are believed to be original, as no mention of the total area underlain by tar has been found in the literature. The predictions of probable occurrences and possible locations of tar deposits in Colorado are based on the continuity of certain beds from Utah into Colorado. A considerable part of the discussion in this publication is devoted to the deposit of bituminous sands near Vernal, Utah. This is a result of the fact that more work has been done on the material from that particular deposit. The approximate locations of the deposits of all hydrocarbons are shown on plate 1, which also gives the approximate age of the surface formations in the basin. A road map of the area is given in plate 2. This map is a composite of all maps available, although the most detailed information is from the access maps of the U. S. Grazing Service. Through the courtesy of the Service these maps were made available and the road locations were transferred to the base maps of Colorado and Utah. Some road information came from the U. S. Indian Service and some from individuals. Locations are only approximate because of errors in transferring them from one scale map to another. Certain cost estimates pertaining to the construction of a plant to process the tar sands of the basin are included in the appendix. These costs were determined by others and are based on the type of equipment used by the Abasand Company on the Athabasca tar sands of Canada. The estimates do not include equipment for mining the sand nor the costof a water supply. They are based on equipment costs as of November 1941 and apply to a plant to handle 300 barrels of asphalt daily.