Expanded Introduction

As mentioned in the info panel, there's quite a bit of risk involved when it comes to drilling for oil and gas. This project is less of an exercise in story-telling, and more of an attempt to allow curious users to explore the data that is made available by the Energy and Geoscience Institute at the University of Utah. Our visualization, in particular, hedges the user to explore the data in a 'drill-down' fashion by focusing on a particular basin, then wells in the basin and the samples the wells have produced.

Given that scientific exploration and analysis on basins and the samples collected from them, the data is incomplete at some parts. For example, while a basin may have multiple wells with multiple samples retrieved, not all the data may have been evaluated. In these instances, we have done our best to remove such samples from the visualization as they won't be displayed in our charts.

Chart Explanations

Total Organic Carbon Content

X-axis: Total Organic Carbon (%)
Y-axis: Frequency

This chart is a histogram of the samples in the selection with respect to the TOC%.

Van Krevelen

X-axis: Oxygen Index
Y-axis: Hydrogen Index

The Van Krevelen chart is typically used to assess the maturity and origin of kerogen. Different types of kerogen have different chances of producing oil and/or gas during the maturation process:

• Type I Kerogen are most likely to produce oil
• Type II Kerogen will likely produce oil and gas
• Type III Kerogen will primarily produce gas
• Type IV Kerogen (unlisted in our visualization) are inert and inorganic; very unlikely to produce oil or gas.

Below is an image how to interpret the Van Krevelen plot (courtesy goes to EPGeology):

Inverse Van Krevelen

X-axis: Tmax
Y-axis: Hydrogen Index

The Inverse Van Krevelen is sometimes known as the Rock-Eval Pyrolysis chart. The main objective of the chart is to convey the maturity of a sample: immature, mature, and postmature by temperature range as seen below (courtesy goes to the National Geophysical Research Institute (India))

Potential Generation

X-axis: Total Organic Carbon (%)
Y-axis: S1 + S2

The Potential Generation chart is exactly as it sounds: how will the sample fare when it comes to actually generating oil and gas? Unlike the other, the Potential Generation chart is a bit more subjective when it comes to evaluating the samples, ranking them qualitatively from Lean/Poor to Excellent (courtesy goes to the International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications):

Definitions

Term	Abbr.	Definition
Hydrogen Index	HI	The Hydrogen Index is the amount of hydrogen in relation to the amount organic carbon in a sample. As the source rock of the sample matures, the HI of the sample will decrease.
Oxygen Index	OI	Similar to Hydrogen Index, Oxygen Index is the amount of oxygen in relation to the amount organic carbon in a sample. As the source rock of the sample matures, the OI of the sample will also decrease.
Temperature (max)	Tmax	Tmax describes the temperature where the maximum rate of hydrocarbon generation occurs in a sample during pyrolysis analysis (decomposition of organic matter via heating in an enviroment void of oxygen.
Total Organic Carbon	TOC	The amount of organic carbon factors into a sample's ability to generate hydrocarbons; the more hydrocarbons, the more likely a sample will be able to produce oil and gas.