Show THE OIL PROBLEM IN THE UINTA BASIN UTAH by prof earl douglass to show some of the unusual and interesting features of the uinta basin I 1 submitted to the mining t review some time ago a series of artices in story form entitled A trip through the uinta basin it represented only a beginning and showed but a small part of what such a trip for pleasures and stud study y might b be we had begun to unravel and trace out the solution of a puzzle which of itself was fascinating but it involved matters of such timely economic importance as well as purly scientific interest that it resolved itself into a great problem worthy of the most careful painstaking and extended observation and study for various reasons a Z good deal of interest was aroused and the search for data took me out into the field so much of the time that I 1 had little time for writing but it gave the opportunity to follow up the quest until it had become one of the most fascinating geological problems which I 1 have ever encountered though the task is no small one and only a part of the preliminary reconnaissance work has been done the conditions are such that it is none too early I 1 am sure to collect arrange and record the facts bagts for the benefit of other investigators and for this purpose as brevity and clear stat ments of facts are needed the story form seems hardly suited I 1 think I 1 do not need to offer excuses for beginning these articles at this time yet I 1 am sure they will be more clearly understood and will be more effective if some of the reasons for writing t them are briefe briefly y stated first entered the field in 1908 1 after conducting a series of hunting expeditions in montana and north dakota for the recovery of the remains of previously unknown plants and animals from the rocks of the various geological ole ages and making a special study of the earliest earliest earlie sJ and later tertiary deposits there I 1 came in 1908 to do simil similar ar work in the lower tertiary deposits in northeastern utah where several expeditions from princeton university an and from the american museum of natural history of new york city had collected extinct mammals unknown elsewhere so far as the extensive tertiary deposits were concerned it was geologically and geographically geographic all y as it still is a little kno knowland wand little geological work of a detailed nature had been done except by those who had been here in search of the unique mammalian remains the basin had already become renowned however for one other distinctive peculiarity the occurrence of great dikes of hydrocarbons such as gilsonite etc the remains of unfamiliar animal life and the composition and structure of the deposits in which they were im im bedded gave us dim hazy glimpses as through the rifted drifted clouds of lands and times of which there were no written records but the huge vein of pure black shining gilsonite deposited between straight perpendicular walls of rock which had the appearance of having been gashed with an immense knife seemed to be at first sight one of those mysteries of nature of which there is no solution the writer has wished at some future time to write a memoir on the geology and geological history of the uinta basin but at every excursion the task seems greater and to solve the larger problems question after question arises for solution nearly everywhere one goes the unparalleled showings of oil and oil residue bring him face to face with the alluring oil problem in all its phases for the ghosts of that modern sphinx seem to stare at him where ever he goes geologist jensen utah for several years engaged in exploratory work in the uinta basin country 2 1 I am excusable then even though I 1 am not classed among oil geologists in attacking or at least not ignoring the oil problem which whatever it may be in other fields is here a strictly geological one to make this truth clear is one of the objects of these articles it estrue that certain questions as to the amount of oil the water line etc will need the service of the drill but the geologist should do careful detailed work ahead of it and guide its use 3 there are still open and unsettled questions as to the origin migration and concentration of petroleum in the uinta basin nearly every phase is open for investigation and it seems that a careful study of conditions here ought to help settle many doubtful questions how oil does actually behave is of more practical interest than how it might behave under certain hypothetical conditions 4 the present conditions are such that the discovery of oil has assumed not only national but international importance prospects of new producing fields should therefore arouse unusual interest facts must supplement rumors and assertions 5 we have become quite accustomed to statements similar to the following the largest efficient telescope lens has been made inventions have nearly reached their climax the last great oilfield bilfield oil field has been opened etc A few days ago a lady was reading a statement of a great physicist that the sun 0 on which we have been accustomed to place so much reliance cannot keep up its heat more than ten million years longer gracious she exclaimed we much time left I 1 am b getting bolettino olet tino t alarmed I 1 was in hopes that we would have time to coll collect act in some money and pay off our debts anyway not being a d learned physicist I 1 do not know whether the sun has decided to go out of business on account of the high price of coal or not but I 1 am sure that marly many of us have learned to not accept assertions as authority and we will continue to refuse to accept such damaging testimony until the evidence is all in or until we think it is 6 with regard to the uinta basin in the absence of facts there are innumerable rumors many of them of an adverse nature among these are assertions that oilmen oil men and geologists have said there is no oil in the basin that there be that there are no oil formations that the structure is not right b that if there ever was oil here it has escaped or dried up etc these I 1 repeat are rumors and they are unjust to geologists of repute as well as unfair to the country for no true geologist would make statements of this kind until lie he had thoroughly b investigated the matter and this I 1 am quite sure has never been done 7 1 I am aware that scores score of oil geologists have made brief or longer visits to the thea basin during the last year or two I 1 understand that some who have stayed but a short time and have seen but a small portion of the basin have given adverse or discouraging reports the only antidotes for the poisonous effects of hasty snapshot snap shot opinions are correlated and systematized facts 8 some have spent weeks or months in the country and have honestly tried to solve the problems which are sometimes puzzling and bewildering perhaps some of the facts which I 1 have observed and which they have missed in in the areas which they have studied may help them toward the solution of these problems seeking fair play for the field J 9 granting that there is oil here in paying quantities d I 1 can see that millions may be spent the oil not be foun in in paying quantities and the development of the fielo field be set back for is critical one on many years the present time a and if I 1 can have a little influence in turning the tide in in the direction of sane impartial broadminded broad minded investigation of the conditions and a levelheaded level headed busness like way of developing the field if these conditions warrant it I 1 will feel that my labor was not in vain 10 one can hardly avoid the impression that the discovery and exploitation of oil at the present time is often too much of a Z gambling gamblin 6 b game that there is too great an atmosphere of mystery surrounding the occurrence and recovery of petroleum that there is too much of the monte carlo spirit connected with it there is an element of risk in every kind of business operation the oil man and mining man must be game to a certain extent and take chances so must the merchant the tradesman and the farmer but I 1 am decidedly of the opinion that mining operations need not be proportionally more hazardous than fd farming and no sane man inan would try to discourage this most useful occupation 11 there is a personal factor also I 1 not only wish the field to receive fair play but I 1 wish to be understood myself I 1 have traveled many thousands of miles in and around the basin and have had unusual opportunities for observation at every trip the prospect widens every excursion is a revelation and I 1 am more and more impressed with the fact that the only sane thing to do is to carry investigations to their limit to carefully study and map the field and if conditions then look as favorable as they do now to make tests with the drill these things I 1 have recommended to some oil companies I 1 feel that I 1 have not been fully understood and have sometimes been misquoted but in these articles I 1 wish to make my position clear and by these I 1 hope I 1 may be judged rather than by alleged oral remarks or by reports which were mostly of a general nature and were made while investigations were in progress inthe in the next article I 1 wish to indicate the principles to be followed give an outline of the plan and offer some facts concerning surface indications in the basin |