Survey of geologic research on Green River oil shale

In the last decade, geologic research on oil-shale deposits and associated rocks of the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming has mushroomed largely in response to the Department of the Interior's oil-shale leasing program and to the active interest of private and governmental groups concerned with environmental aspects of an oilshale industry. Geologic studies, however, are only a small part of the total research effort on Green River oil shale. Investigations covering such diverse topics as archaeology, plant and wildlife, mining and processing, oil-shale law, sociology, and "baseline" studies of soils, water, and air are currently being pursued by researchers from the United States and from as far away as England. Probably no other mineral deposit in the world is being so intensively studied by so many, but it has yet to yield a single barrel of oil commercially.