Hydrologic Assessment of the San Juan Basin
In a unique partnership of academia, industry and government, the Bureau of Geology and the AMP will help New Mexico Tech’s Petroleum Engineering Department and the Petroleum Research Recovery Center to generate a Reasonable Foreseeable Development (RFD) Scenario for the Mancos Shale in the New Mexico portion of the San Juan Basin by conducting a hydrologic assessment of the water supply.
Hydrocarbon development by hydraulic fracturing—the process by which a fluid mixture of water, sand, and chemical additives is injected into wells under high pressure to create cracks and fissures in rock formations to improve well production—requires an average of 4 to 6 million gallons (12 to 18 acre-feet) per well for each “fracking” event. In the San Juan Basin this water is expected to come entirely from groundwater. Using the Bureau’s well database (NMWells) and the geophysical logs, cuttings, and rock cores housed in the New Mexico Library of Subsurface data, scientists will map the major water-bearing strata and describe their hydrologic characteristics, water quality, and volume of water in storage.
Funded by U. S. Bureau of Land Management through New Mexico Tech’s Department of Petroleum Engineering
For more information, please contact:
Shari Kelley
Senior Geophysicist
New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources
New Mexico Tech
801 Leroy Place
Socorro, NM 87801
sakelley@nmbg.nmt.edu
New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources
New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
801 Leroy Place
Socorro, NM 87801-4796
information: (575) 835-5420
fax: (575) 835-6333
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu
The New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources is a research and service division of:
