| Description |
The University of Utah's Institute for Clean and Secure Energy and the Utah Geological Survey teamed up to drill 1000 feet of 4-inch diameter core in the upper Green River Formation oil shale deposits in the eastern Uinta Basin, Utah. The purpose was to recover nearly the entire oil shale zone (Parachute Creek Member), providing "fresh" samples for a variety of geochemical and geomechanical tests. The well was spudded on May 18, 2010 in the upper Green River Formation, very near the Uinta/Green River Formation contact (in fact, the boundary could be seen on the hill side next to the drill rig). Over the course of seven days, we recovered 986 feet of continuous core, starting at 20 feet below surface, down to a total depth of 1006 feet. Since oil shale is a very competent rock and cores very well, the drillers were able to use a 20-foot whole core barrel for the majority of the drilling, saving significant time. |
