Show oil 01 1 possibilities bi li ti es of the southeastern utah fl field eld BY B J SlL LIMAN it would probably be news to the average man that a large portion of southeastern utah is almost as unknown and unexplored as darkest africa along the railroad and the few main traveled roads there is a fringe of inhabited country but over large areas there are no permanent inhabitants and in a country miles square you can count the CA 6 0 0 4 TL f V cirni N A U 7 L 1 A av V UA MA 5 v ura D I 1 C ft L oc ok w s I 1 R I 1 R TO 11 C A C f do C 01 SA N 1 S all C A tz D c X IX fl I 1 L Z ra ir A N A settlers and stock mens cabins on the fingers of one hand I 1 i to the few that have been privileged to penetrate its recesses it is a wonderful country the scenery is magnificent beyond com of greyn gren river utah in the railroad red book ifor for january ry 1921 pare the vermillion cliffs are a ruddy orange the all shades of purple mauve and maroon with an occasional bright green and the mceldo sandstones are as variegated as a barbers pole the rich colorings always blend with the lark dark g green reen of the cedars the blue of the sky and the white of the snow clad peaks nature always hangs the most highly colored and luscious fruits on the highest bough and seems to take a delight in hiding her riches in the most out of way and inaccessible places the traveler on the railroad across the northern border of this area travels near the base of the book cliffs and with the exception of the alfalfa fields and orchards at green river over a barren and desert country this particular strip of country holds no promise of utility to the farmer stockman or miner and the blue shale hills are weathered into typical bad lands topography back a few miles either way is a different story but the traveler sees only the barren hill sides and scanty desert growth between and is apt to judge the whole country worthless instead of full of undeveloped possibilities and resources of all her riches nature has been the most careful of petroleum and has taken great care to conceal it gold is often found in sandy bars in mountain creeks and the great california gold excitement of 1849 was caused by the discovery is covery of such placer gold any man that could secure a pick and shovel could mine gold there at bin binham bingham ham utah is a whole mountain of copper ore which is mined by steam shovels but with oil it is different it is hidden below the surface hundreds and often thousands of feet and seldom with a surface showing of the actual oil the expense of drilling oil wells is so great that it is only business prudence that every care should be used to minimize the chances of failure to find a commercial oil well it is only within the last decade or two that any attempt has been made for a scientific analysis of the reasons if any such there be for the localization and accumulation of petroleum in so called oil pools in brief it was found upon careful and painstaking investigation that the large majority of oil fields conformed to certain conditions the underlying rocks must be oil producing formations in which oil has been created by the mysterious operation of natures chemistry 2nd and there must be porous formations capable of holding within its interstices or crevices oil in large quantities as natural reservoirs 3rd ard and lastly there must be something in the nature of a barrier to prevent the oil from passing through the porous formations and by preventing its migration and dissipation causin causing it to accumulate in large quantities in oil pools ready to yield up its oily riches when tapped by the drill oil yielding formations the conditions surrounding the origin of oil in natures manufactory are as yet imperfectly understood but certain rocks have never been found to contain oil and on the other hand certain other rocks have been found to be especially favorable td the formation of oll oil this is especially true of the rocks of the carboniferous age named because of the abundance of the forms of carbon found there As petroleum is a hy dro carbon compo compound tind the connection between crude oil and the rocks of this age is apparent the oil production of pennsylvania kansas and oklahoma in a as well as portions of texas is almost e exclusively x from rocks locks of the carboniferous age not only are they prolific of oil but the oil is high grade with a high gasoline content and the lubricating oils manufactured from it are the standards of excellence the particular part of the carboniferous series that is most productive is called the pennsylvanian these formations are composed of alternating lime stones and sandstones the genesis of the stand stones was the sandy shores of ancient lakes and seas and they are often composed of coarse sand very slightly cemented together in some cases the interstices between the grains gives a storage room for fluids amounting to as much as 30 per cent of the total volume where these sandstones are of considerable thickness and porosity they form ideal reservoirs for the accumulation of oil in large quantities always providing that there is something to retain and keep the oil there there must be a tight lid or cap rock and something to localize and keep the oil from running down hill from gravity or being pushed through porous sands up hill by hydrostatic pressure oil geologists have found that a bend or fold in the rocks and especially p an up fold or inverted trough forms an obstacle to the free passage of oil through the boorus sandstones and tends to allow the accumulation of oil in large quantities providing of course that the underlying rocks connecting with this porous sand are oil bearing such folds are called geological structures and the nearer they approach the form of a dome or an inverted saucer the more perfectly they serve ta to localize and hold accumulations of oil in quantity the earth stresses that have caused the folding and bending of the rocks have usually acted upon the deeper formations in a good deal of the same way as the surface surface formations and in most cases an approximate idea at least can be learned of the structure of the underlying rocks by a study of the surface rocks if the surface rocks are folded into an anticline or dome in practically all cases the underlying ones are similarly folded the last condition is the only surface indication di cation of oil found in most oil fields or more properly speaking indicative of the fact that if the underlying formations are oil bearing and contain porous beds for reservoirs the conditions are favorable for the accumulation of oil in large quantities in an oil pool the fact that the underlying formations are oil bearing and dp contain porous beds must be ascertained by the drilling of wells or deduced from the fact that thai where these formations outcrop or come to the surface perhaps fifty or miles away or are exposed in some i deep canyon that they are petr and contain porous beds the southeastern utah field I 1 in southeastern utah covering parts of emery grand san juan garfield wayne and kane counties is a vast extent of wide plains extensive plateaus and mesas lofty detached mountain groups and great uplifts nature has done nothing in a picayunish way for everything is on a grand scale the head of the grand canyon of the colorado lies within its interior and the river has cut deep into the lower formations and the geologist can read on it its 3 wall as perfect a cross section of the formations as could be obtained by a core drill the studies of the U S geological survey and especially those of geologists in private service have shown that over the greater portion of southeastern utah the carboniferous formations are within convenient drilling distance of the surface although practically everywhere covered by formations of the cretaceous and Jur ages and so hidden from the ordinary observer oil saturated sands exposed in the canyon cannon of the colorado and at other places where the pennsylvanian for after superficial examination have expressed the opinion that the oil has all leaked out and that there is not enough remaining to make a commercial oil field there are many answers ansberg to this but this one is sufficient at bluff in san juan county is an oil field that has been producing from these identical formations for a number of years but on account of being at a distance from the railroad over ever a mountain range and consequent poor transportation facilities it has remained undeveloped one of the big companies has now taken over some of the acreage with a view to its rapid development the first well in this field came in as a gusher at feet the oil is according to dr dakof day of the U S geological survey unusually light in specific gravity and yields more than the average amount of gasoline and burning oil taken all together these oils are well suited for the manufacture of gasoline and kerosene and there is every indication that the presidium would yield valuable lubricating oils aly outcropping Out cropping saturated oil sand reef sixty miles south view of the so southern athern extremity of the of green river utah lations are exposed to view they are found to include a number of zones of sandstone which not only are porous but actually do contain petroleum in quantities in some places these oil sands contain numerous oil seeps and occasionally a place where the issuance is sufficient to form a continuous flow in an oil spring these oil sands are immensely thick at certain locations and contain such a content of oil that they are termed oil saturated sands the oil that is seeping from these exposed oil sands is both light and heavy the seep of light oil leaves a very slight residue as it evaporates and is not so noticeable as that of the heavy black oils that exude from the sands and fractions evaporate leave a when the lighter residue of asphaltum or brea it is evident to the most casual observer that there is or has been at least I 1 an immense quantity of oil in these thes eoll oil sands a as s the tonnage 0 of f oil saturated sands is so vast as to ao be almost beyond calculation some the underlying strata thus being shown to be oil bearing and containing suitable beds for the accumulation of oil in quantity the next inquiry of the oil man is to whether there is sufficient rock folding to bend the rocks into anticlines anti clines domes doras and closed structures broad uplifts folds and dom s A recent probes professional dional paper of the U S geological survey says broad uplifts consisting of an antic lindl folding or doming of the rocks are of prime importance in utah in southeastern utah three major folds fo ads have been considered as having the greatest importance as pro prospective spec tive oil fields although there are others of scarcely less promise the th is a gigantic elongated almost flat dome in E emery mery and wayne counties known as the san rafael swell and is one of the largest closed structures known it is an immense uplift pushed up from 2000 to feet above the corresponding geological on any side it consists afan elevated interior plateau forty miles long and twenty miles wide known locally as the sinbad surrounded on all sides by reefs of jagged almost perpendicular sandstone several thousand feet high forming the sides of the dome these are fantastically eroded into immense buttes pinnacles pin acles and castles such as are found in the garden of the gods at manitou Man itou colorado only on a very much greater I 1 scale of magnificence this encircling reef is cut in a few places by very narrow and deep canyons which drain the interior plateau with the exception of the canyon of the san rafael river which cuts a great gash t ash across the northern part of theo the swell these gorges contain no water save after a heavy rain which happens infrequently scramble for sinbad permits on oil account of the many favorable showings of petroleum this area was withdrawn beside besides s many individuals who are well known th the e larger companies plan deep and expensive test wells as soon as their drilling permits have been granted by the government A few permits have already been granted and their owners are preparing to begin the required work and are now investigating vesti gating t the trans transportation p or tation facilities from the railroad to their holdings it has been a very difficult country to explore and there were no existing roads so that most of the preliminary work has been done on horseback with a pack train to transport supplies two roads into sinbad country there are two practical routes into the sinbad country the first leaves the railroad at price utah and reaches the center of the I 1 lease ease district by a crossing of the san rafael river at the mouth of duckhorn buckhorn wash and the ascent of a side canyon up on r iii ai fi i ap t Z lie TV W 41 tu 41 V N V in 4 vz x A ag a 7 aaa R R perspective glimpse of the green river country near green river utah for entry years ago by the government in the biggest oil withdrawal ever made comprising a total of one million three hundred thousand acres during the withdrawal period the principal operating oil companies had corps of geologists explore and map this country so that upon telegraphic notice of the passage of the oil leasing bill there was a great scramble to file applications fo for drilling permits so highly are the oil pros pacts of the sinbad thought of by oil men that every foot of this area has been filed on at least squa aqua e miles so eager have the oil operators been to obtain choice acreage that there are many conflicting and overlapping claims and in one case nine interests contend for one tract among the more prominent companies whose names appear on the filing papers are the shell company of california the carter company the ohio company the Kas oming company midwest refining company etc to the elevated plateau a total distance of seventy five miles half of this distance is over existing country roads and the com completion p let of the remainder is being pushed by the i ene energetic people of castle valley a and tid price the other and much shorter route is from green river and reaches the heart of the field in twenty four miles passing through the perpendicular walls of the reef by a gorge known as the black dragon Black Dragon canyon was the old indian thoroughfare into the sinbad but has been closed to travel by boulders brought down by a great freshet years ago the canyon is full of indian picture writings and hieroglyphics not so far translated but probably giving directions as to the best hunting grounds and where water could be found it is a natural gateway through the rim reef and solves the problem of getting an auto and truck road through on a moderate gra grade de green river men build rod the public spirited business men of green river saw the importance of a practical route to transport drilling machinery and the thousand and one things required in the development of oil fields and quickly raised a subscription to pay for the work all red tape was cut and competent road men were put in charge of two gangs of men ni n and the work put through in record time the san rafael river is crossed by a bridge thus avoiding all dangers of fording the quick sands of that treacherous stream the route avoids all bad sand and makes a practical and desirable way of trucking machin ery and material into the heart of the sinbad an auto can leave green gre en river and within two hours can be in the heart of the leasing district feet above the town of green river not satisfied with this achievement the citizens of green river are now planning the straightening and relocating parts of this road so that the distance from the railroad at sphinx switch to the heart of the field will be reduced to twenty two miles another locality attracting general interest is the circle cliffs |