Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resource Estimates for Two U.S. National Recreation Areas

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated undiscovered oil and gas resources underlying Big South Fork National Recreation Area and Obed Wild and Scenic River in Kentucky and Tennessee. The report allocates approximately 16 billion cubic feet of gas and 15 thousand barrels of oil to Big South Fork, and 0.5 billion cubic feet of gas and 0.6 thousand barrels of oil to Obed. These estimates represent potential volumes in new fields and are based on existing assessments from the Appalachian Basin and Cincinnati Arch Provinces.

Use Cases

• Compare potential hydrocarbon volumes between different protected areas based on the reported resource estimates.
• Model regional energy resource distribution based on the described assessment units and plays.
• Inform land management and conservation policy based on the estimated undiscovered oil and gas volumes.

Strengths

• Provides specific volumetric estimates for two distinct geographic areas.
• Report includes three figures and two tables, suggesting structured presentation of results.
• Methodology is described as applying results from existing USGS assessments in defined provinces.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Collection Method

Allocation of existing assessment unit and play results to specific land parcels.

Time Range

Assessment likely reflects geological knowledge circa 2006.

Freshness

Report dated 2006; temporal coverage is not explicitly stated.

Geography

Big South Fork National Recreation Area and Obed Wild and Scenic River in Kentucky and Tennessee, USA.