The Gulf Coast's Hosston and Travis Peak Rocks May Hold 35.8 Trillion Cubic Feet of Gas

More than 14,900 wells have already been drilled into the Hosston and Travis Peak Formations of the U.S. Gulf Coast — 3,980 of them since the U.S. Geological Survey last assessed these rocks in 2002. Even so, the USGS's new assessment finds a large amount of gas still undiscovered: a mean estimate of 35.8 trillion cubic feet, almost all of it in a single continuous accumulation, along with 28 million barrels of oil and 156 million barrels of natural gas liquids.

The seven conventional and one continuous assessment units of the Hosston and Travis Peak Formations. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey.

What was assessed

The USGS used a geology-based method to estimate undiscovered, technically recoverable resources — both conventional and continuous (unconventional) — in the Lower Cretaceous Hosston and Travis Peak Formations and rocks of the same age. They are part of the Upper Jurassic–Cretaceous–Tertiary Composite Total Petroleum System, in the onshore and State-waters parts of the northern Gulf of America, in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

The geology

• Two names, one time. The Early Cretaceous Travis Peak Formation of Texas and southern Arkansas was laid down at the same time as the Hosston Formation of Louisiana and eastward. Together they are the second first-order sequence of clastic sediment laid down in the onshore Gulf Coast after Late Triassic rifting opened the basin, during the largest global rise in sea level of the Early Cretaceous.
• Seal above, gap below. In many places the base of the formations is a deeply cut erosional unconformity; the top is sealed by the regionally extensive carbonates of the Cretaceous Sligo and Pettet Formations.
• Source rocks. Mature, oil-prone source rocks underlie the formations everywhere onshore: the Upper Jurassic Smackover, Bossier and Haynesville Formations.

The eight assessment units

Means: oil in millions of barrels, gas in billions of cubic feet.

The Eastern Hosston unit's hydrocarbons may have come from the Jurassic Smackover, from Lower Cretaceous source rocks in the South Florida Basin, or from an unknown source rock beneath the western edge of the Florida Peninsula. The continuous unit's southern limit is set by the temperature above which continuous resources are no longer technically recoverable.

The totals

F95 means a 95 percent chance of at least that amount; F5, a 5 percent chance. The estimates are fully risked.

Sources

Based on Lauri A. Burke and others, "Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources in the Lower Cretaceous Hosston and Travis Peak Formations, U.S. Gulf Coast, 2024," U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2025–3021 (2025), doi:10.3133/fs20253021, a work of the United States government in the public domain. Input data: Burke (2025), USGS data release doi:10.5066/P1JPWRAY.