The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale

What Is The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale? The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) is a sedimentary rock formation that consists of organic-rich fine-grained sediments that were deposited in a marine environment that existed across the Gulf Coast region approximately 90 million years ago. When hydraulically fractured, wells in the TMS have produced commercial amounts of oil. The Louisiana Geological Survey has estimated that there is a potential reserve of about 7 billion barrels of oil in the TMS.

How Big Is The TMS? It extends across southern Louisiana, from Vernon Parish to St. Tammany Parish The TMS varies in thickness varies from approximately 500 feet in southwestern Mississippi to more than approximately 800 feet in the southern part of the Florida Parishes in southeastern Louisiana The TMS varies in depth from an approximately depth of 11,000 feet to the north to more than 15,000 feet to the south.

National View Of The TMS

Regional View Of The TMS

TMS Statewide Distribution

Stratigraphy Of The TMS

TMS Wells On Google Earth Imagery

TMS Wells On A Map

How Much Oil Is There In The TMS? The Louisiana Geological Survey, which did the initial work on both the Tuscaloosa Gas and Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, has estimated that the potential oil reserves – that is, the amount of technically and economically recoverable oil - are excess of seven billion barrels. Given yesterday’s crude price of approximately 100 dollars a barrel, that’s somewhere around 700 billion dollars worth of oil.