Matthew D. Merrill

United States Geological Survey | USGS · Eastern Energy Resources Science Center

This chapter presents information pertinent to the geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration potential within saline aquifers located in the Atlantic Coastal Plain and Eastern Mesozoic Rift Basins of the Eastern United States. The Atlantic Coastal Plain is underlain by a Jurassic to Quaternary succession of sedimentary strata that onlap westward...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed an assessment methodology for estimating the potential incremental technically recoverable oil resources resulting from carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) in reservoirs with appropriate depth, pressure, and oil composition. The methodology also includes a procedure for estimating the CO2 t...

For this study, a methodology was developed for assessing impacts of wind energy generation on populations of birds and bats at regional to national scales. The approach combines existing methods in applied ecology for prioritizing species in terms of their potential risk from wind energy facilities and estimating impacts of fatalities on populatio...

The U.S. Geological Survey has completed an assessment of the potential geologic carbon dioxide storage resources in the onshore areas of the United States. To provide geological context and input data sources for the resources numbers, framework documents are being prepared for all areas that were investigated as part of the national assessment. T...

Economic (>0.5%) accumulations of helium at the La Barge Platform in western Wyoming are the result of radiogenically-produced helium from sedimentary crust that was mobilized by deep basinal ground water flow or possibly hydrocarbons, and concentrated by diffusion into stable hydrocarbon traps. Helium production from the La Barge Platform is sourc...

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (Public Law 110–140) directs the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to conduct a national assessment of potential geologic storage resources for carbon dioxide (CO2) and to consult with other Federal and State agencies to locate the pertinent geological data needed for the assessment. The geologic sequestrat...

The U.S. Geological Survey has developed a methodology to assess the impacts of wind energy development on wildlife; it is a probabilistic, quantitative assessment methodology that can communicate to decision makers and the public the magnitude of these effects on species populations. The methodology is currently applicable to birds and bats, focus...

The U.S. Geological Survey has completed an assessment of the potential geologic carbon dioxide storage resource in the onshore areas of the United States. To provide geological context and input data sources for the resources numbers, framework documents are being prepared for all areas that were investigated as part of the national assessment. Th...

A regional sampling of gases from thermal springs near the LaBarge Field, Wyoming, USA to determine the extent of the total carbon dioxide system (TCDS) indicates that the system may extend up to 70 km to the northwest of the field. Geochemical evidence from noble gas isotopes, stable element isotopes, and gas composition provide the foundation for...

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (Public Law 110–140) directs the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to conduct a national assessment of potential geologic storage resources for carbon dioxide (CO2). The methodology used by the USGS for the national CO2 assessment follows up on previous USGS work. The methodology is non-economic and intende...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is conducting geology-based carbon dioxide storage resource evaluations of approximately 40 major sedimentary basins in the United States in order to fulfill some of the requirements of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Individual storage assessment units (SAUs) within each basin are defined on the...

An analysis of the of sealing formations chosen as cap rocks in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) storage resource assessment reveals certain depositional environments that produce suitable regional scale sequestration seals. The USGS methodology requires low permeability, regional, and homogenous seals of approximatel...

In response to the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted a national assessment of potential geologic storage resources for carbon dioxide (CO2). Storage of CO2 in subsurface saline formations is one important method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curb global climate change. This report provid...

Sequestration of CO2 in geologic media may become a key mitigation strategy in the face of climate change. Additionally, CO2 sequestration may represent a key energy technology because injection into mature oil and gas fields can enhance the recovery of increasingly scarce hydrocarbons. Project planning can be aided by comparing geologic properties...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is completing an assessment of the geologic storage potential for carbon dioxide (CO2) within the Anadarko Basin. This assessment is being performed as part of the USGS national assessment of geologic CO2 storage resources in which individual sedimentary basins are divided into storage assessment units (SAU) based...

We have developed two automated detectors that can recognize the sulfate mineral jarosite in unknown visible to near-infrared spectra (350–2500 nm). The two detectors are optimized for use within the terrestrial and martian atmospheres. The detectors are built from Support Vector Machines trained using a generative model to create linear mixtures o...

The large Pliocene Caviahue caldera and associated active Copahue volcano are major volcanic features on the northwestern side of the Neuquén Basin. Chemical and petrographic data from the volcanic complex show a compositional range from basaltic andesite to rhyolite, predominance of two-pyroxene andesites and dacites, and a majorquartz-biotite-bea...

Mars rovers and orbiters currently collect far more data than can be downlinked to Earth, which reduces mission science return; this problem will be exacerbated by future rovers of enhanced capabilities and lifetimes. We are developing onboard intelligence sufficient to extract geologically meaningful data from spectrometer measurements of soil and...

We have developed an artificial neural network (ANN) based carbonate detector capable of running on current and future rover hardware. The detector can identify calcite in visible/NIR (350-2500 nm) spectra of both laboratory specimens covered by ferric dust and rocks in Mars analogue field environments. The ANN was trained using the backpropagation...

Sulfate salt discoveries at the Eagle and Endurance craters in Meridiani Planum by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity have proven mineralogically the existence and involvement of water in Mars past. Visible and near infrared spectrometers like the Mars Express OMEGA, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter CRISM and the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory Rov...

Jarosite mineralization at the St. Lucia volcano is described.

We have developed an artificial neural net detector for use on board Mars rovers that correctly identifies calcite under Mars analogue dust (JSC Mars-1 regolith simulant) layers up to ∼100 μm thickness and 80% aerial coverage. Both the detector output and the band depth of the ∼2300 nm CO=3 absorption are linearly related to the surface area of exp...

Sulfate salt discoveries at the Eagle and Endurance craters in Meridiani Planum by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity have proven mineralogically the existence and involvement of water in Mars' past. Visible and near infrared spectrometers like the Mars Express OMEGA, the upcoming 2006 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter CRISM and the 2009 Mars Science...

The Caviahue-Copahue volcanic complex (38 S, 70 W) is located on the eastern margin of the active arc in the southern Andes, Argentina. Volcán Copahue, an active stratovolcano which hosts an active hydrothermal system, sits on the southwestern rim of the elliptical Caviahue megacaldera (17 x 15 km). The caldera wall sequences are up to 0.6 km thick...

Currently Mars missions can collect more data than can be returned. Future rovers of increased mission lifetime will benefit from onboard autonomous data processing systems to guide the selection, measurement and return of scientifically important data. One approach is to train a neural net to recognize spectral reflectance characteristics of miner...

We have developed a highly accurate support vector machine (SVM) based detector capable of identifying jarosite (K, Na, H₃O)Fe ₃ (SO₄)₂(OH)₆) in the visible/NIR (350-2500 nm) spectra of both laboratory specimens and rocks in Mars analogue field environments. To keep the computational complexity...

Currently Mars missions can collect more data than can be returned. Autonomous systems for data collection, processing and return will aid future Mars rovers in prioritizing and returning geologically important information. We have created a neural net detector that is able to successfully recognize carbonates from Visible/NIR (350-2500 nm) spectra...