The Wind River Basin is a structural and sedimentary basin that formed during the Laramide orogeny in latest Cretaceous and early Eocene time. The basin encompasses about 7,400 square miles in central Wyoming and is bounded by the Washakie, Owl Creek and Bighorn uplifts on the north, the Casper arch on the east, the Granite Mountains uplift on the south, and Wind River uplift on the west (fig. 1). Many important conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources have been discovered and produced from reservoirs ranging from Mississippian through Tertiary in age (Keefer, 1969; Fox and Dolton, 1989, 1996; De Bruin, 1993; Johnson and others, 1996, 2007). It has been suggested by numerous authors (Geis, 1923; Schrayer and Zarrella, 1963, 1966, 1968; Meissner and others, 1984; Burtner and Warner, 1984; Surdam and others, 2010) that the Mowry Shale is an important source rock for many of these accumulations. With new drilling and well completion technologies the Mowry Shale is considered an important (unconventional) shale gas and shale oil objective in other Rocky Mountain basins (Sterling and others, 2009; Surdam and others, 2010). In the Wind River Basin, the Mowry Shale is composed of organic-rich mudrocks, bentonites, and siltstones (Kirschbaum and others, 2019) (fig. 2). Please see supplemental information for associated references. Selected figures have also been included to help describe this data release. These figures are provided in JPEG format. These include: Fig1_Rocky Mountain basins.jpg. Map of Rocky Mountain region showing locations of Laramide sedimentary and structural basins and intervening uplifts.
Fig2_Xsection.jpg. U.S Geological Survey Alcova Reservoir AR–1–13 core hole showing lithology, and comparison to gamma ray and conductivity logs. From Kirschbaum and others, 2019 Please see data dictionary sheet in the excel file for detailed table column/attribute information.