Thermopolis Shale
E938591
Thermopolis Shale is a Cretaceous-age marine shale formation in the Western Interior of North America, notable for its dark, fossil-bearing mudstones deposited in the Western Interior Seaway.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Thermopolis Shale canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11631697 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Thermopolis Shale Context triple: [Cloverly Formation, underlies, Thermopolis Shale]
-
A.
Sundance Formation
The Sundance Formation is a Middle to Late Jurassic marine sedimentary rock unit in the western United States, known for its shallow sea deposits that underlie the dinosaur-rich Morrison Formation.
-
B.
Pinedale Anticline gas field
The Pinedale Anticline gas field is a major natural gas-producing geological formation in western Wyoming known for its large reserves and intensive energy development.
-
C.
Marcellus Shale
Marcellus Shale is a vast natural gas–rich sedimentary rock formation underlying much of the Appalachian Basin in the eastern United States, notably Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York.
-
D.
Bakken
Bakken is a surname most notably associated with Earl Bakken, the American engineer and co-founder of the medical device company Medtronic.
-
E.
McClure Basin
McClure Basin is a reservoir created by McClure Dam, primarily used for water storage and related recreational and environmental purposes.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Thermopolis Shale Target entity description: Thermopolis Shale is a Cretaceous-age marine shale formation in the Western Interior of North America, notable for its dark, fossil-bearing mudstones deposited in the Western Interior Seaway.
-
A.
Sundance Formation
The Sundance Formation is a Middle to Late Jurassic marine sedimentary rock unit in the western United States, known for its shallow sea deposits that underlie the dinosaur-rich Morrison Formation.
-
B.
Pinedale Anticline gas field
The Pinedale Anticline gas field is a major natural gas-producing geological formation in western Wyoming known for its large reserves and intensive energy development.
-
C.
Marcellus Shale
Marcellus Shale is a vast natural gas–rich sedimentary rock formation underlying much of the Appalachian Basin in the eastern United States, notably Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York.
-
D.
Bakken
Bakken is a surname most notably associated with Earl Bakken, the American engineer and co-founder of the medical device company Medtronic.
-
E.
McClure Basin
McClure Basin is a reservoir created by McClure Dam, primarily used for water storage and related recreational and environmental purposes.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (43)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Cretaceous stratigraphic unit
ⓘ
geologic formation ⓘ shale formation ⓘ |
| color | dark gray ⓘ |
| contains |
bentonite beds
ⓘ
fossils ⓘ siltstone interbeds ⓘ |
| containsFossilType |
ammonites
GENERATED
ⓘ
bivalves GENERATED ⓘ foraminifera GENERATED ⓘ marine invertebrates GENERATED ⓘ trace fossils GENERATED ⓘ |
| containsMineral |
clay minerals
ⓘ
feldspar ⓘ pyrite ⓘ quartz ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| depositionalEnvironment | marine ⓘ |
| depositionalSetting | Western Interior Seaway NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| exposedIn |
Colorado
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Montana NERFINISHED ⓘ South Dakota NERFINISHED ⓘ Wyoming NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| fossilPreservation | good ⓘ |
| geologicAge | Cretaceous NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasEconomicUse |
hydrocarbon source rock (locally)
ⓘ
seal rock in petroleum systems ⓘ |
| isPartOfSequence | Cretaceous marine transgressive–regressive cycles ⓘ |
| lithology |
marine shale
ⓘ
mudstone ⓘ |
| locatedIn |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
Western Interior of North America NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Thermopolis, Wyoming NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| overlies | Mowry Shale (locally may vary) ⓘ |
| partOf | Western Interior Seaway succession NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| region | Rocky Mountain region NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| researchUse |
biostratigraphy
ⓘ
paleoenvironmental reconstruction ⓘ sequence stratigraphy ⓘ |
| stratigraphicUnitOf | Western Interior Basin NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| typicalTexture | fine-grained ⓘ |
| underlies |
Frontier Formation (locally may vary)
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Muddy Sandstone (locally may vary) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Thermopolis Shale Description of subject: Thermopolis Shale is a Cretaceous-age marine shale formation in the Western Interior of North America, notable for its dark, fossil-bearing mudstones deposited in the Western Interior Seaway.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.