Natural Resources Research

, Volume 15, Issue 2, pp 67–84 | Cite as

Heavy Oil and Oil (Tar) Sands in North America: An Overview & Summary of Contributions

Article
First Online:

As conventional oil and gas reservoirs become depleted other unconventional energy sources have to be recovered and produced. Four of the major unconventional resources that are strategic for North American interests are heavy oil, oil sands, oil shales, and coal-bed methane. Recent interest and activity in Canada’s vast oil sands are progressing rapidly as soaring oil prices are fueling a ‘gold rush’ in oil sands development in Alberta. This interest is evident by the record-number of oil sands and heavy oil presentations at Energy Minerals Division (EMD)-sponsored sessions at the 2004 and 2005 Annual Conventions of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), held in Dallas, TX and Calgary, AB.

KEY WORDS:

North American oil sands heavy oil occurrences general geologic controls overviews 
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Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks are given to the Energy Minerals Division of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists who sponsored the oil sands/heavy oil sessions at the 2004 and 2005 AAPG annual conferences, and to all the contributors who made these sessions a success. Regarding the present paper, thanks to Roger Macqueen and Brian Cardott for helpful suggestions to improve the manuscript.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Alberta Energy and Utilities Board/Geology and Reserves GroupCalgaryCanada

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