Print this pageNew Perspectives on Airborne Radiometric Reconnaisance: Analyses of NURE (National Uranium Resource Evaluation) Data Over Four Producing Oilfields
ZINKE, ROBERT, and JEROME G. MORSE
Processing and mapping of radiometric data acquired in the period 1977 to 1982 from airborne platforms by the DOE in the comprehensive search for uranium provides a viable tool for hydrocarbon exploration. Studies were made of the geology with the DOE data over four producing oilfields in the Rocky Mountain area: the Wilson Creek field, Rio Blanco, Colorado; Belle Creek field, Powder River County, Montana; Bridger Lake field, Summit County, Utah; and the Eland, Dickinson, Duck Creek, Versippi fields complex, Stark County, North Dakota. Each was mapped using gamma ray data recorded in the spectrometer's total count window (0.3 - 3 MeV). The low gamma flux values clearly show good correspondence with the oilfields, although at times slightly offset. These findings add to the geochemical viewpoint - i.e. - the causative geochemical factors of microseepage induced redox (reduction/oxidation) reactions - by proposing roles played by the underlying nuclear physics and geology of the three primordial radioelements, potassium, thorium, and uranium.