The Plio-Pleistocene hydrocarbon fairway of offshore western Louisiana is restricted to the outer continental shelf and upper continental slope where a thick wedge of nearshore and deep-marine sediments was deposited.

This large, 4-sheet geologic map displays more than 350 lithostratigraphic units ranging in age from Precambrian to Quaternary.

Since 1979, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has funded cooperative programs with coal-bearing states in an effort to provide current U.S. coal resource estimates that are calculated by uniform, computerized methods.

Plio-Pleistocene strata of offshore Texas having hydrocarbon exploration potential are restricted to the southeastern continental shelf and upper continental slope. This thick wedge of nearshore and deep-marine sediments firms the west margin of a late Neogene and Quaternary depocenter.

The Sabine Arch is a large (1 2,000 mi2 [31,000 km2]), low-amplitude anticline centered on the Texas-Louisiana border.

In mature sedimentary basins, where mechanical compaction is negligible, the hydrodynamics is typically described by steady-state flow driven by potential energy represented by the water table, which generally follows the topography.

The Lower Cretaceous Travis Peak Formation contains an estimated 6.4 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas in place in East Texas and North Louisiana. Advanced technology will be needed to maximize recovery from this low-permeability ("tight") gas sandstone.

Horizontal drilling in a mature hydrocarbon province such as Texas can increase recovery from reservoirs in which a significant proportion of oil or gas in place remains unrecovered by conventional means.