Word: basin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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This is the Piceance Basin, the heart of a geological formation containing the world's biggest known deposit of oil shale. Locked in the mottled rock is the energy equivalent of about 1.2 trillion bbl. of oil, or roughly 40 times the nation's present proven reserves of liquid petroleum...
When we reached the basin, I asked everyone how they felt. Aside from the expected nervousness, I learned, not only the adrenaline was flowing. More than half the Kirkland crew needed a restroom, and since Indian summer had solicited an audience of thousands, the River Charles was not an auspicious site...
...coal producers (many of the same corporations) began to realize that America's continued industrial development was going to run up against hard times in eastern labor-intensive underground coal mines--where almost 400 years' worth of coal remains. Instead, companies looked eagerly towards the "Great American Coal Basin"--the western United States. There the coal lies close to the surface and high production with minimal labor costs is the name of the game...
Geologist Gary Raines reached that conclusion in 1977 when he studied images of a 13,000-sq.-km (5,000-sq.-mi.) section of the Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana, taken from 920 km (570 miles) above the earth. He noted that clusters of medium density sagebrush on the photographic maps fell in the same area as known uranium deposits. Further study showed that this type of vegetation pattern coincided with the kind of sandy shale rock formations that often accompany uranium deposits...
...This is only a geological mapping tool," he says. The technique has not yet uncovered new uranium deposits in the Powder River Basin, but Raines believes it may help to identify minerally rich areas in other parts of the- U.S., which private industry could explore...