Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee continues his Annals of the Former World series about the geology of North America along the fortieth parallel with Rising from the Plains. This third volume presents another exciting geological excursion with an engaging account of life—past and present—in the high plains of Wyoming. Sometimes it is said of geologists that they reflect in their professional styles the sort of country in which they grew up. Nowhere could that be more true than in the life of a geologist born in the center of Wyoming and raised on an isolated ranch. This is the story of that ranch, soon after the turn of the twentieth century, and of David Love, the geologist who grew up there, at home with the composition of the high country in the way that someone growing up in a coastal harbor would be at home with the vagaries of the sea.
Sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation to the Denver Museum of Natural History. Ever wondered what the ground below you was like millions of years ago? Merging paleontology, geology, and artistry, Ancient Wyoming illustrates scenes from the distant past and provides fascinating details on the flora and fauna of the past 300 million years. The book provides a unique look at Wyoming, both as it is today and as it was throughout ancient history—at times a vast ocean, a lush rain forest, and a mountain prairie.
An introductory chapter briefly reviews Wyoming's geology followed by a series of road guides with the local particulars. The authors tell you what the rocks are and what they mean. Useful graphics and charts supplement the text and help you to understa
Seismic reservoir characterization aims to build 3-dimensional models of rock and fluid properties, including elastic and petrophysical variables, to describe and monitor the state of the subsurface for hydrocarbon exploration and production and for CO2 sequestration. Rock physics modeling and seismic wave propagation theory provide a set of physical equations to predict the seismic response of subsurface rocks based on their elastic and petrophysical properties. However, the rock and fluid properties are generally unknown and surface geophysical measurements are often the only available data to constrain reservoir models far away from well control. Therefore, reservoir properties are generally estimated from geophysical data as a solution of an inverse problem, by combining rock physics and seismic models with inverse theory and geostatistical methods, in the context of the geological modeling of the subsurface. A probabilistic approach to the inverse problem provides the probability distribution of rock and fluid properties given the measured geophysical data and allows quantifying the uncertainty of the predicted results. The reservoir characterization problem includes both discrete properties, such as facies or rock types, and continuous properties, such as porosity, mineral volumes, fluid saturations, seismic velocities and density. Seismic Reservoir Modeling: Theory, Examples and Algorithms presents the main concepts and methods of seismic reservoir characterization. The book presents an overview of rock physics models that link the petrophysical properties to the elastic properties in porous rocks and a review of the most common geostatistical methods to interpolate and simulate multiple realizations of subsurface properties conditioned on a limited number of direct and indirect measurements based on spatial correlation models. The core of the book focuses on Bayesian inverse methods for the prediction of elastic petrophysical properties from seismic data using analytical and numerical statistical methods. The authors present basic and advanced methodologies of the current state of the art in seismic reservoir characterization and illustrate them through expository examples as well as real data applications to hydrocarbon reservoirs and CO2 sequestration studies.
For every woman who has ever been called outdoorsy comes a collection of stories that inspires unforgettable adventure. Beautiful, empowering, and exhilarating, She Explores is a spirited celebration of female bravery and courage, and an inspirational companion for any woman who wants to travel the world on her own terms. Combining breathtaking travel photography with compelling personal narratives, She Explores shares the stories of 40 diverse women on unforgettable journeys in nature: women who live out of vans, trucks, and vintage trailers, hiking the wild, cooking meals over campfires, and sleeping under the stars. Women biking through the countryside, embarking on an unknown road trip, or backpacking through the outdoors with their young children in tow. Complementing the narratives are practical tips and advice for women planning their own trips, including: • Preparing for a solo hike • Must-haves for a road-trip kitchen • Planning ahead for unknown territory • Telling your own story A visually stunning and emotionally satisfying collection for any woman craving new landscapes and adventure.
Fluvial and lacustrine-dominated clastic sedimentary rocks as thick as 1,800 m (6,000 ft) comprise the Paleocene Fort Union Formation and the Eocene Wasatch Formation of the western Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. The systematic mineralogy of 45 samples of channel-fill sandstone from this sequence reflects the uplift and erosion of the Bighorn Mountains. Samples were collected to study vertical changes in the mineralogy of lower Tertiary sandstones adjacent to the Bighorn Mountains, lateral variations in the composition of the upper Paleocene Tongue River Member of the Fort Union Formation along the eastern front of the mountains, and variations in the composition of equivalent upper Paleocene sandstones of the central and western parts of the basin. Vertical changes in the mineralogy of a succession of Paleocene and Eocene sandstone units adjacent to the Bighorn Mountains most likely were produced by uplift and sequential erosion of the rocks that formerly overlaid the mountains. Uplift probably began in the middle Paleocene, during deposition of the Lebo Member of the Fort Union Formation, and continued into the Eocene. Differences in the mineralogy of the sandstone units along the western edge of the Powder River Basin that correspond to differences in the rock types now exposed along the crest of the Bighorn Mountains suggest that much of the erosional degradation of the Bighorn Mountains occurred during an early Tertiary tectonic episode. Lateral changes in the suite of unstable detrital grains within the Tongue River Member are compatible with facies and paleotransport studies that indicate a substantial eastward flux of detritus of early Tertiary age from the Bighorn Mountains into the central Powder River Basin.
