While Ohio is underlain by 25,000 square miles of Devonian/Mississippian organic rich shales, only the southern unglaciated portion of the main north-south outcrop represents a readily mineable resource. This five county area has been studied by previous ODOE projects which have focused on surface field and archive data. The current study represents a transition to a more detailed effort of documentation based on subsurfaced coring, sampling, and testing. The subject core hole is l located at Shawnee State forest headquarters seven miles west of Portsmouth, Ohio on the Ohio river is Scioto County. The entire up split core was shipped to the USDOE Laramie Energy Technology Center, where it was split and tested. The second half was then returned to ODOE for further retort testing.