Prairie Dog Creek Coal Bed Methane Play
Powder River Basin, Sheridan County, Wyoming
Prairie Dog Creek Field is located in the northwest corner of the Powder River Basin in Sheridan County, Wy. The Field covers an area of 68,539 gross acres in a foreland province of rolling hills five miles north of Sheridan, Wy. This part of the basin is filled with approximately 8,000 feet of Paleozoic and lower Mesozoic rocks overlain by a younger sequence of Cretaceous and lower Tertiary coal bearing rocks of continental origin. The largest accumulations of gas are found associated with structurally deformed areas. The focus of exploration was therefore on a variety of conventional trapping mechanisms associated with the coal seams to trap economic accumulations of gas.
A geochemical survey was conducted for JM Huber Corporation to determine if there is a relationship between light hydrocarbons in surface soil with production over the field. Sample media collected on a ¼ mile grid over the field included shallow (8-12”) and deep (5-10’) soil samples and “free gas” from a depth of 10 feet. Soils were subjected to thermal desorption and analyzed for C1-C6 hydrocarbons by GC/FID.
Of all the methods tested, the thermally desorbed hydrocarbons from surface soils best map the areas with the highest production.
CBM Paper Presented at the 2002 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting (1.1mb) 
