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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Utah FORGE: Updated Phase 2C Well Location Coordinates

Utah FORGE has been established to develop, test, and improve the technologies and techniques required to develop EGS-type geothermal resources. Drilling of the first of two deep deviated wells, 16A(78)-32, will begin in the second half of 2020. This well will serve as the injection well for the injection-production well pair that will form the heart of the laboratory. This submission contains an archive of well location data within the Roosevelt Hot Springs geothermal area. An Excel spreadsheet is included containing updated GPS data for Utah FORGE wells drilled during Phase 2C (56-32, 68-32, 78-32). This data was collected over time by the Utah Geological Survey and contains all coordinates collected and the final averaged XY coordinates in both Longitude and Latitude and UTM Zone 12, NAD83. Elevation is also included. GIS shapefiles with well points are provided in the archive.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Utah FORGE Seismic Stations and Wells GPS Survey Data, 2021

This is a CSV spreadsheet containing UTM and Latitude and Longitude coordinates and elevations for Wells 78-32, 58-32, and 16A(78)-32 and BOR1, BOR2, BOR3, FOR2, FOR5, FORK, FORU, and FORW seismic stations. These are from a GPS survey conducted by the Utah Geological Survey in June, 2021.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

EGS Collab Experiment 2: Earth Model Datasets

The EGS Collab Project performed a series of tests to increase the understanding the response of crystalline rock mass to stimulations and fluid circulation to efficiently implement enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) technologies. The EGS Collab team created two underground testbeds at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead SD at a depth of approximately 1.5 km (4850 level) and 1.25 km (4100 level) to examine hydraulic fracturing and hydraulic shearing, respectively. Experiment 2 was designed to examine hydraulic shearing and fluid flow in testbed 2 in amphibolite under a controlled set of stress and fracture conditions. This document summarizes the general geology, natural fractures, and conceptual model(s) of stimulated fracture networks in the testbed 2. The dataset package included here are input and output products associated with Earth Models for the EGS Collab Testbed 2. The earth model datasets are included in the whole package (project) in Leapfrog file format. Also, datasets are given in primary input file format (csv).

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

DEEPEN Leapfrog Geodata Model Cleaned and Reformatted Exploration Datasets from Newberry Volcano

DEEPEN stands for DE-risking Exploration of geothermal Plays in magmatic ENvironments. As part of the DEEPEN 3D play fairway analysis (PFA) conducted at Newberry Volcano for multiple play types (conventional hydrothermal, superhot EGS, and supercritical), existing geoscientific exploration datasets needed to be acquired, cleaned, reformatted, and assembled in Leapfrog Geothermal. This GDR submission includes all of the cleaned and reformatted (X (m), Y (m), elevation (m), processed data values) datasets used to build the Leapfrog Geodata model. Existing datasets were acquired from the GDR, from AltaRock, and from other sources. This yielded the following datasets: - Digital elevation model produced from LiDAR data by Ramsey and Bard, 2016 - MT surveys from 2006, 2011, 2014, and 2017 (including single inversions) - Gravity surveys from 2006, 2007, and 2011 (including single) - Earthquake catalogs from PNSN, LLNL, and the Newberry EGS Demonstration project - Seismic velocity model from Templeton et al., 2014 - The Frone, 2015 temperature model and a new one produced through extrapolating downhole temperature measurements and the SMU temperature at depth maps. Two versions of the new model are provided: 250 m spacing and 500 m spacing - EarthVision geologic model with alteration from Moser et al., 2016 - Well data from EGS well 55-29, deep geothermal wells, coreholes (GEO N-2 through 5) and several thermal gradient holes - "Newberry Well Data:" Location, simple lithology, directional survey data, and temperature data for the 34 wells and coreholes used in the Newberry PFA Although there are additional 2D datasets available in the area, such as aeromagnetic surveys, these were not included in the analysis. While it may be possible to project these datasets into three dimensions by assuming the surface measurements do not vary with depth, this method is associated with high uncertainty. Preexisting inversions of these data were unavailable, and inverting additional geophysical datasets is outside the scope of this project.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Coso Geothermal Spectral Library for Rocks and Minerals

An integrated open mineral spectral library designed to enhance the utility and precision of mineral spectral data for geothermal exploration, developed from a reliable and comprehensive digital dataset for seamless sharing by integrating field data, the USGS spectral library, and pertinent information obtained from Coso geothermal field (Coso) in California. The ASD FieldSpec portable spectrometer was utilized for collecting spectral data, which was subsequently analyzed using the THOR Material Identification tool in ENVI, The Spectral Geologist (TSG) software by CSIRO, and the Fully Constrained Linear Spectral Unmixing algorithm (FCLSU) in MATLAB. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with a mineralogy-analyzing function was employed to assess the mineral composition of samples, ensuring precise mineralogical analysis. A portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometer was also utilized to gather information on elemental enrichment. A framework for developing spectra data and establishing spectral libraries for various geological cases was proposed within this study. The characteristic spectra of six alteration minerals - alunite, chalcedony, epidote, hematite, kaolinite, and opal - were acquired from Coso samples. The spectral library for the Coso alteration minerals was introduced for further application in academic study or industrial exploration. To browse the Coso Geothermal Spectral data and related figures from spreadsheets: #1 Unzip and store the following items in the same folder. 'Contact Probe Data.zip', 'Sample Photos.zip', and 'Coso spectra of higher-certainity minerals.xlsx'. #2 Open 'Coso spectra of higher-certainity minerals.xlsx'. The hyperlinks in the spreadsheet lead to the folders or figures of: spectra .asd file, spectra ASC II file, spectra plots, and sample photos. The spectra data is raw data without splice correction. Spectra .asd files require particular software to open. (These cannot be opened in GIS software such as ArcGIS.) Spectra ASC II files can be opened in a text editor or spread sheet program.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Basin and Range Investigation for Developing Geothermal Energy: Exploration Data

This data package includes exploration material from the Basin & Range Investigation for Developing Geothermal Energy [in Hidden Systems] project (BRIDGE), which is part of a broader initiative to advance the exploration of hidden geothermal resources in the Basin & Range Province of the western U.S. Data modalities include a helicopter-borne time-domain electromagnetic survey, magnetotellurics, 2-meter temperature measurements, ground-based gravity and legacy aeromagnetic surveys, geochemistry, geologic mapping, LiDAR analysis, 3D models, associated geospatial data, and a bibliography of existing data and references utilized in prospect characterization and conceptual modeling. Key files are in CSV, Geosoft, and Geotools formats. Please refer to READMEs for dataset-specific information. Where applicable, acquisition data and inversion models for a particular prospect or area of interest are organized separately. This BRIDGE data package is the product of a collaboration led by Sandia National Laboratories with partners from Geologica Geothermal Group, Inc., the U.S. Navy Geothermal Program Office, and consultants Steven Sewell (Australis Geoscience Ltd) and William Cumming (Cumming Geoscience). The project's areas of interest (AOIs) are based off priority areas of interest in the southwestern portion of the Nevada Play Fairway map, distribution across tectonic provinces, accessibility, and the project team's extensive experience in the region. AOIs cover about a dozen basins that include unexplored prospects, partially explored prospects, and some developed analogue resources that provide validation cases. Many unexplored and partially explored prospects are on U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) land, though adjacent lands are included as well.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Physical Modeling of Coupled Thermohydraulic Behavior of Compacted MX80 Bentonite during Heating

Abstract This paper describes a tank-scale test setup and experimental methodology used to investigate coupled heat transfer and water flow processes during heating of compacted MX80 bentonite to high temperatures. Specifically, a temperature of 200°C was maintained by a cylindrical heating element at the center of a compacted bentonite layer containing an array of temperature, dielectric, and relative humidity sensors. In addition to providing an evaluation of the spatiotemporal variations in temperature, relative humidity, degree of saturation, and global volume, the coupled thermohydraulic properties of the bentonite were assessed. A wetting front was initially observed to move away from the central heater, followed by a drying process until reaching thermohydraulic equilibrium. The soil–water retention curve (SWRC) of the bentonite followed a wetting scanning path before following the primary drying path exhibiting a shift in water retention with elevated temperature. Results from the tank-scale test can be used for validation of numerical simulations of drying processes in the engineered barrier system of a high-level radioactive waste geological disposal repository and confirm that a temperature-dependent hysteretic SWRC with scanning paths is required to accurately capture the bentonite response.

Engineering↗
DOE OSTI2023

Coastal typologies and surface and subsurface characteristics of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea Coast

This dataset was generated to classify the Alaskan Beaufort Sea Coast (ABSC) into a set of distinct coastal typologies, to understand the surface and subsurface characteristics and variability of the ABSC, and to quantify relationships between these characteristics and historical rates of shoreline change. This geospatial dataset contains two csv files of points along the ABSC at a 50 m spacing, one for points sheltered by a barrier island and one for points exposed to the open ocean. Each point has a lat/lon location, and we have attributed to each point average values for elevation, historical long-term shoreline change rates, shoreline orientation, landcover, mean annual ground temperature, geomorphic unit, lithology, geology, ecological landscape unit, maximum thaw settlement potential, massive ice content, and segregated ice content. Each point is also assigned to one of 16 coastal typologies, determined by a hierarchical clustering algorithm on the elevation, shoreline change, orientation, and ground temperature data. There are 9 sheltered typologies and 7 exposed typologies, identified by an integer label in the last column of each csv file. The other two csv files contain the integer IDs and classes for the landcover and geomorphology datasets.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Data from: 'Abiotic influences on continuous conifer forest structure across a subalpine watershed'

This package archives the core data used for analysis and inference in 'Abiotic influences on continuous conifer forest structure across a subalpine watershed' (Worsham et al., 2025). All data were collected in the East River, Washington Gulch, Slate River, and Coal Creek watersheds of Colorado. In the paper, we quantified the relative influence of climate, topographic, edaphic, and geologic factors on conifer stand structure and composition, and their functional relationships, at the watershed scale. We used waveform LiDAR data to derive spatially continuous stand structure metrics. We fused these with a species-level classification map to estimate tree species abundance. We applied generalized additive and generalized boosted models to evaluate the covariability of structural and compositional metrics with abiotic variables. The package contains the essential products required for reproducing our analysis and the tables and figures reported in the publication. The products comprise four classes: (1) geospatial data, (2) tabular data used for inferential analysis, (3) tabular data describing analytical results and performance statistics, and (4) a data user guide. (1) includes discretized waveform LiDAR data, locations and attributes of individual tree crowns, sampling locations and domain boundaries, a canopy height model, and raster files of estimated forest structural and compositional metrics at 100 m grid scale. (2) includes all response and explanatory variable values applied in inferential models. Response variables include conifer forest stand density, basal area, 95th percentile height, quadratic mean diameter, and others. Explanatory variables include climatic water deficit, actual evapotranspiration, elevation, heat load, soil available water content, and others. (3) includes results of training and testing several individual tree detection (ITD) algorithms, as well as inferential modeling results. (4) is a PDF user guide for this data package, including detailed descriptions and data dictionaries for all files. The data package root contains 17 assets: 8 compressed tape archive (.tar.gz) files, 5 comma-separated values (.csv) files, 3 Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF) (.tif) files, and 1 Portable Document Format (.pdf) file. The compressed .tar.gz archives contain ESRI shapefiles (.shp) .tif, compressed LASer (.laz), and .csv files. The archives must first be decompressed using the widely distributed command-line software utility TAR. All other files, including constituent files within the .tar.gz archives, can be opened in the open-source R statistical computing environment. Alternatively, .csv files may also be read in any simple text editor software or Microsoft Excel. Geospatial files including .shp and .tif files can also be opened in GIS software, such as QGIS (open-source) or ESRI ArcGIS (proprietary). The .pdf Data User Guide can be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader or other compatible readers.

2018 NEON and 2025 CHESS Campaigns↗
DOE OSTI2026

AmeriFlux FLUXNET-1F US-ADR Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS)

This is the AmeriFlux Management Project (AMP) created FLUXNET-1F version of the carbon flux data for the site US-ADR Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS). This is the FLUXNET version of the carbon flux data for the site US-ADR Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS) produced by applying the standard ONEFlux (1F) software. Site Description - This tower is located at the Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began studies of unsaturated zone hydrology at ADRS in 1976. Over the years, USGS investigations at ADRS have provided long-term "benchmark" information about the hydraulic characteristics and soil-water movement for both natural-site conditions and simulated waste-site conditions in an arid environment. The ADRS is located in a creosote-bush community adjacent to disposal trenches for low-level radioactive waste.

Moreo, Michael [U.S. Geological Survey]↗
DOE OSTI2020

Assessment of Enhanced Oil Recovery Using Carbon Dioxide in Michigan Basin Silurian Pinnacle Reefs

The Michigan team at Western Michigan University has provided technical analysis and support of the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) using carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Northern Michigan Silurian Pinnacle reefs. This report discussed the relevant data about reservoir properties, including lithologic and depositional characteristics of the reservoir formations and porosity and fluid flow properties through different compartments in the reservoir. The team has also developed models that represent the geological and physical characteristics of the reservoir and seal system.

EOR↗
DOE OSTI2023

SMART CarbonSAFE Model

The modeling work for this project built upon previous work done for the CarbonSAFE Rocky Mountain Phase I. A geologic and dynamic model was built in Petrel version 2019.3 for the area of the Colorado Plateau near Price, Utah. It is located at the north end of the San Rafael Swell in a natural gas field called Drunkards Wash. The model is 61.5 km east-west and 53 km north to south with 123x106x21 cells, giving a cell dimension of 50x50 m2. The 21 layers in the Z direction are of varying thickness depending on the formation. The Carmel, the seal layer, has 3 layers and is about 200 meters thick around the injection well. The Navajo Sandstone, the principal reservoir, has 5 layers and is about 100 meters thick. The Kayenta has 5 layers and is roughly 50 meters thick and the Wingate, a secondary reservoir, has 5 layers and is 120 meters thick. The base of the model is the Chinle Formation with 3 layers and about 120 meters of thickness..

Carbon Dioxide↗
DOE OSTI2024

RokBase Core Facility Data Collection

The RokBase Core Facility Data Collection v1.0 is an aggregation of information on the locations and collections of geologic core facilities in the United States. It contains two spatial files, their corresponding attribute tables within a catalog, and an interactive web map and dashboard. It is intended to be used for research and comparison purposes, see full disclaimer and credits. Please contact NETL if revisions / corrections can be made to improve this dataset.

core facility location↗
DOE OSTI2025

Carbon Storage Technical Viability Approach (CS TVA) Matrix

The Carbon Storage Technical Viability Approach (CS TVA) Matrix is a knowledge framework developed to outline the information needed for geologic carbon storage. The CS TVA Matrix contains 5 categories, 14 sub-categories, and 47 components. This framework can be leveraged to assess the availability of data and information needed for a carbon storage project. The information categories of the matrix are tied to a list of required data using weighted mapping, published herein.

carbon storage↗
DOE OSTI2020

Fast and Accurate Core Analysis by the Full-Immersion Pressure-Pulse Decay: Part 1—Theory

Summary Core-scale measurements are considered the ground truth that oil and gas or electric utility companies use to predict the migration of fluids such as oil, natural gas, carbon dioxide, or brine deep underground during their extraction or injection operations. To provide a greater understanding of petrophysical properties of low-permeability geologic formations such as shales and tight gas sandstones, this study introduces a novel core-analysis procedure. The technique follows conventional pressure-pulse-decay permeametry, where the pressure in an inlet chamber adjacent to a cylindrical core plug undergoes a rapid pressurization, the system is shut in, and the pressure reaches a new equilibrium. However, unlike a standard unidirectional pressure-pulse decay, the full-immersion pressure-pulse decay (Hannon 2019) applies a pressure disturbance to the entire outer surface area of the sample. This article covers the numerical simulator designed to model flow through an anisotropic porous sample in this scenario. The model assumes distinct but uniform permeabilities along the radial and axial directions of the cylindrical plug sample. When extracting a plug vertically (or perpendicular to bedding), the permeability along the radial direction associates with the horizontal permeability (i.e., parallel to bedding), whereas in the axial direction, flow occurs perpendicular to bedding (a vertical permeability). Investigations of these model outputs demonstrate an approximately 20-fold decrease in time to complete a full-immersion experiment compared with conventional pressure-pulse decay. Furthermore, the pressure-decay curves resulting from the full-immersion method have slightly different shapes than those resulting from other unidimensional transient methods. These differences begin to demonstrate that, under achievable experimental conditions, the analysis of pressure data from one full-immersion test could enable the simultaneous estimation of the apparent permeabilities parallel and perpendicular to bedding of a cylindrical sample in addition to its porosity. A follow-up article finalizes the proof of this capability with a parameter-estimation procedure and presents experimental verification through a proof-of-concept study. Described in greater detail in that article, the parameter estimator requires multiple forward simulations to analyze the data, which behooves minimizing the compute time for each simulation. By using an alternating direction implicit time-marching scheme and a structured but variably spaced grid, the numerical simulator built for this purpose provides a forward model output with suitable accuracy in approximately 0.5 seconds.

Energy & Fuels↗
DOE OSTI2022

Water Imbibition and Oil Recovery in Shale: Dynamics and Mechanisms Using Integrated Centimeter-to-Nanometer-Scale Imaging

Water imbibition, and the associated oil displacement, is an important process in shale oil reservoirs after hydraulic fracturing and in water-based enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Current techniques for water imbibition measurement are mostly “black-box”-type methods. A more explicit understanding of the water imbibition/oil recovery dynamics and geological controls is in demand. In this paper, a multiscale imaging technique that covers centimeter to nanometer scale (i.e., core to pore scale), integrating neutron radiography, microcomputed tomography (micro-CT), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) is applied to investigate the water imbibition depth and rate and the cause of heterogeneity of imbibition in shale samples. The dynamic processes of water imbibition in the 1-in. (25.4-mm) core sample were explicitly demonstrated, and the imbibition along the matrix and imbibition through microfractures are distinguished through neutron radiography image analysis. The causes of observed imbibition heterogeneity were further investigated through micro-CT and SEM image analysis for 1.5-mm diameter miniplug samples from different laminas of the 1-in. core samples. Imbibition depth and rate were calculated on the basis of image analysis as well. Estimation of oil recovery through water imbibition in shale matrix was performed for an example shale field. Here this innovative and integrated multiscale imaging technique provides a “white/gray-box” method to understand water imbibition and water-oil displacement in shale. The wide span of the length scale (from centimeter to nanometer) of this technique enables a more comprehensive, accurate, and specific understanding of both the core-scale dynamics and pore-scale mechanisms of water imbibition, oil recovery, and matrix-fracture interaction.

04 OIL SHALES AND TAR SANDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Comparative Assessment of U-Net-Based Deep Learning Models for Segmenting Microfractures and Pore Spaces in Digital Rocks

Segmentation of high-resolution X-ray microcomputed tomography (µCT) images is crucial in digital rock physics (DRP), affecting the characterization and analysis of microscale phenomena in the porous media. The complexity of geological structures and nonideal scanning conditions pose significant challenges to conventional image segmentation approaches. Motivated by the recent increasing popularity of deep learning (DL) techniques in image processing, this work undertakes a comparative study of DL models, specifically U-Net and its variants, for segmenting multiple targets with distinguished features in digital rocks, including discrete fracture networks (DFNs), pore spaces, and solid rock. Particularly, DFNs have a smaller volumetric fraction over others, bringing in a substantial challenge of imbalanced segmentation. The primary focus is to evaluate the architecture and feature enhancement strategies of various DL models, including U-Net, attention U-Net, residual U-Net, U-Net++, and residual U-Net++. The models were designed as 2.5D, utilizing a central 2D image and its two adjacent upper and lower 2D images as input to provide a pseudo-3D context. In addition, because the ground truth of segmentation was unknown for real-world digital rocks, we created a benchmark data set following the inverse operations of segmentation. The data synthesis started from the label images (i.e., solid rock, pore spaces, and DFNs), followed by simulating partial volume blurring, adding random background noise, and introducing ring artifacts to mimic real raw X-ray µCT images. The data set, which included various rock types (i.e., sandstone and artificial data), scanning resolution, and magnitudes of noise and artifacts, was divided into training and testing data sets with a 90% and 10% ratio, respectively. Moreover, in addition to the conventional pixel-wise evaluation metrics, the physics-based metric of the lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM) simulated permeability provided more comprehensive assessments. The results demonstrated that the residual connections, nested architectures, and redesigned skip connections contribute to the model performance and give the residual U-Net++ the highest accuracy. The improvements were mainly on the boundaries and small targets, especially the DFNs, which dominate the interconnectivity and therefore affect the permeability greatly. This study also rigorously evaluated the efficiency and generalization of each model, demonstrating that the sophisticated architectures achieved excellent practicability and maintained robust performance on completely unseen data, ensuring their suitability for diverse and challenging DRP applications.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗