A "cell" of abnormally high fluid pressure in the deep part of the Powder River basin is centered in an area where oil-generation-prone source rocks in the Skull Creek (oldest), Mowry, and Niobrara (youngest) formations are presently at their maximum hydrocarbon-volume generation rate. The overpressures are believed to be caused by the high conversion rate of solid kerogen in the source rocks to an increased volume of potentially expellable fluid hydrocarbons. In this area, hydrocarbons appear to be the principal mobile fluid species present in reservoirs within or proximal to the actively generating source rocks.

Maximum generation pressures within the source rocks have caused vertical expulsion through a pressure-induced microfracture system and have charged the first available underlying and/or overlying sandstone carrier-reservoir bed. Hydrocarbons generated in the Skull Creek have been expelled downward into the Dakota Sandstone and upward into the Muddy Sandstone. Hydrocarbons generated in the Mowry have been expelled downward into the Muddy or upward into lower Frontier sandstones. Hydrocarbons generated in the Niobrara have been expelled downward into upper Frontier sandstones or upward into the first available overlying sandstone in the Upper Cretaceous. The first chargeable sandstone overlying the Niobrara, in ascending order, may be the (1) Shannon, (2) Sussex, (3) Parkman, (4) Teapo , or (5) Tekla, depending on the east limit of each sandstone with respect to vertical fracture migration through the Cody Shale from the underlying area of mature overpressured Niobrara source rocks.

Vertical charge into each of the various carrier-reservoir sandstone units from their related source rock has been followed by a process of dominantly lateral updip migration within the carrier-reservoir bed toward sites of entrapment. Purely updip migration paths have been modified by both stratigraphic complexity and ground-water hydrodynamic flow. Stratigraphic-type traps terminating migration paths predominate on the north flank of the basin. Anticlinal traps predominate on the western and southern flanks.

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