magazine

A Closer Look
Shale
Showdown:
In this corner, the Bakken Play: The Bakken
formation is a rock unit from the Late Devonian
to Early Mississippian age occupying
about 200,000 square miles of the subsurface
of the Williston Basin, underlying parts
of Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and
Manitoba. The formation is entirely in the subsurface.
In April 2008, a United States Geological Survey
(USGS) report estimated the amount of recoverable
oil using technology readily available at the end
of 2007 within the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3
billion barrels, with a mean of 3.65 billion. In April
2013, the USGS released a new figure for expected
ultimate recovery of 7.4 billion barrels of oil.
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