Show OIL PROSPECTS IN THE GREAT SALT LAKE BASIN by dr J von gal scale the old roman saying historia est magister vitae history is the teacher of life is applicable to all human activity if we are to master our subject we have first of all to study the history of the subject we are dealing with second to this is the method of studying the subject which becomes paramount if the subject is not within the reach of our sensitive organs as for example in oil geology in this case success or failure depends entirely upon the method of study employed therefore it is evident that we ive are doomed to failure if we dont follow the proper in method ethod what is then the proper method that which is pointed out by tile the logic of nature the logic of facts the philosophy which is the logic of facts says galileo in the great book of nature is aritta in lingua b mathe malicca ma ina this means that we can call solve natures problems with mathematical accuracy if we learn the philosophy ph of nature this philosophy is manifested in everything and everywhere in this world and expressed by the logic of facts dr edward meyer writes in his book die lebens der kultar die braucht kein batsel fur denpe zu sein der sellen will nature is no riddle for the one who will see unfortunately men are either unconscious or what is worse will not see the logic of nature she logic as oswald expressed it in his remarkable book der ergang b des Abend landes and whoever disregards the logic of facts will never ie be able to see the working order of nature we indulge in fashionable hypotheses and fancied theories instead of accepting the facts and their logic and forget that science is based on oil facts alone the science of oil geology geology is the science of the crust of the earth therefore it deals eminently and primarily with facts this is just as true of oil geology 6 which is the science of finding the hidden oil deposits it is not a freak of nature that the crude oil deposits are buried so deep it was and is natural necessity and was brought 6 forth by the working order of nature the supreme reason for the underground deep existence of crude oil is that natures great laboratory could not have produced the crude oil and especially could not lot have preserved it in another way but if nature secreted the whereabouts of crude oil deposits she also furnishes US s with infallible facts which will disclose the presence of crude oil deposits what are arc these facts 1 crude oil was formed from froin or organic b anic materials 2 crude oil is found in or organic 6 cranic sediments 3 crude oil is found between two impervious strata these facts which corroborate each other and their logic will with the aid of tile the geological history of the territory positively disclose the presence of crude oil deposits at any place where they ey do exist scientist geologist los Ano angeles cles california the first and most important fact in oil geology is that crude oil was formed from organic materials by slow natural chemical process what are the logics of this fact first that we must start in our work at this all important fact which is the foundation of the crude oil but this tin s fact is entirely disregarded at present in oil geology and geologists start in their work on the surface on oil t the ll 11 top instead of at the bottom now if we start at the top we must of course go downward in our explanation for L or the presence of oil and to give this procedure some scientific I 1 semblance oil geologists correlate the upper lying strata with the oil bearing strata if there were correlations between these strata this procedure might ini 9 ht be regarded as logical but how could there be any correlation between the oil bearing strata and the far above lying strata which were deposited hundreds of thousands and millions of years later and after the forn formation lation of the crude oil such correlation is physically impossible because of the time and space there is correlation between the oil bearing stratum and the immediately under and upper lying strata only second as oil was formed from organic materials by slow natural chemical process this fact excludes the sediments which were deposited prior to the existence of organic life on oil the earth we know that or organic yanic life developed on the earth during the cambrian period this is the reason that below the cambrian strata crude oil cannot exist the slow natural cher chemical process on oil the other hand eliminates the most recent sediments because the time was not sufficient to transform tile the organic materials into crude oil the passing away of organic beings in a natural way as we witness it in our days could not have furnished enough materials for the crude oil on oil the one hand and it could not have been accumulated in large quantities on oil the other therefore there must have been wholesale destruction in the organic world caused by world cataclysm the history of the earth teaches us that our planet had been several times visited by of 6 great magnitude 6 after the first separation of water and land the different parts of the earth were several times subjected to oceanic and when oceanic subiner submergence ence occurred in some part of the earth the terrestrial re animal and plant life was in the effected area totally destroyed b gathered cra by the ocean currents and buried in sand and mud in this way organic b sediments were built up tip which yield us tile the crude oil then came dessi lessi cation when tile the receding b ocean waters left behind enormous quantities of marine destroyed fauna fatina and flora which again supplied new materials for the crude oil geological history of great basin now if we study the geological history of the great basin of which the territory at present occupied by the state of utah formed the most important part we find that this territory was several times subjected to oceanic subiner bences and alternately and to ice water torrents which carried hereto and accumulated herein immense quantities of organic org anic materials which were destroyed through the submergences and and during the ice ao ages 2 1 es during the carboniferous time the great basin became an all inland sea as a whole and at the end of the jurassic period when the Cordil lerian revolution took place on the american continent and the sierras wasatch and other mountains were in the making the great basin was divided into four different parts the territory comprising the present state of utah formed a part of the largest unit of the four parts at this time the inland sea began to evaporate leaving behind and burying the destroyed vast quantities of or organic cranic materials in said territory but after a comparatively short period of time it was submerged again aaen at the Conlan chean period when a great depression took place and almost the whole western part of north america became an inland I 1 sea again by this depression which was most marked in the territory aitor y which forms the state of utah this territory terri territory tor y became again the dumping place for the organic materials which were destroyed by the new submergence of the great basin at the close of the cenozoic era when another land building upheaval took place and the building up of the sierras and other mountain ranges was continued the great basin became an all entirely and permanently separated entity but with reduced territory I 1 this separation of the great basin from the other parts of the north american continent plays an important role in the history of crude oil deposits in the great basin because the destroyed vast quantities of organic C materials remained there therefore the first and most import important aut thing for the formation of crude oil vast quantities of organic materials was furnished to the great basin why oil exists in salt lake basin As the territory of the present state of utah suffered the greatest depression in the great basin the largest amount of the destroyed organic materials must have been accumulated and buried there knowing this the question naturally arises what became of the vast quantities of organic materials which were destroyed and accumulated there evidences at hand point to their being transformed into gas crude oil bitumen and asphalt perishable organic materials in ordinary temperature and in the abundance of moisture salt water and out of contact of air will undergo decomposition fermentation and produce oily tarry substances similar to bitumen by subsequent process different varieties are formed from one ne into another for example when cha is constantly escaping light oil is changed into heavy oil this into bitumen and finally this into asphalt drillings Drilli ils 6 near the great salt lake have already disclosed the presence of gas and asphalt and these are considered as signs of the presence of oil but no real oil bearing formation has as yet been encountered but th this s is natural because the wells which were drilled in said territory are shallow the oil bearing formations in the great salt lake basin will be found between feet and feet or even deeper I 1 have already mentioned that za greatest depression took place in the territory of utah and especially in the great salt lake basin from the time when the great basin was cut off from the sea the wastes from the surrounding mountains were accumulated in the depressed territory which was thus filled with alluvial debris to the depth of thousands of feet after the ice ages during the interglacial periods when the great ice sheets and snow which covered the larger part of the north american continent was melting the ice water torrents filled up further the depressed salt lake basin with alluvial debris to such an extent that of the once mighty mountain ranges only the crests are now visible this brief historical review explains why crude oil must exist in the great salt lake basin and further why the oil horizons will be deep in said territory comparatively little is known of the geology of this territory because the U S an geological survey paid little attention to the great salt lake basin so far as the oil possibilities there are concerned which may be explained by the negative results of the several drillings there and as most of the people and even the big oil companies are looking for guidance to the U S geological ceolo ical survey which is no doubt best equipped for the work in the absence of encouragement from that quarter little exploration work was done moreover the U S geological survey is very skeptical concerning the possibilities of oil and asphalt bearing series in the unconsolidated sedimentary fillings or underlying bed rocks but admits that the lake sediments carry plant and animal remains which is proof that the destroyed organic materials were buried there and if we consider tha that t the physical conditions in said territory were favorable for the formation of crude oil we are inevitably lead to the conclusion that crude oil deposits must exist there to my mind there can be no doubt of that the paramount great question is not the presence of crude oil because it is there but and this is a big but whether or not it will be of commercial value or in other words whether it will pay the cost of production and yield some profit in petroleum b geology b when one is faced with the great of inducing 2 or encouraging b investors to put their money in wildcatting wild cattin 6 one cannot be cautious ell enough therefore one ought to carefully consider and weigh the evidences which are for or against the presence of oil 1 11 collner commercial cial quantities tasks of the petroleum geologist oil geologists as a rule are guided in their concerning the presence of oil in commercial q quantities tian by surface indications nicanon meaning structural indications I 1 have already point pointed ed out that structures have no casual relation to crude oil deposits crude oil existed millions of years before the so called structures were erected and oil did not cause the erection of the structures and structures did not cause the formation of the crude oil therefore the so called structures are no surface indicators of the presence of oil but yet structures are indicators for the possibility of the presence of oil in commercial quantity to state that structures have no causal relation to the oil deposits and at the same time assert that they are indicators as to the commercial quantity of oil seems paradoxical but it is not on oil the contrary it proves my assertion as I 1 will show the first task of the 6 geologist is to present reasons for the presence of oil in certain territory we can prove this by the past geological eo logical history of the territory in question if there was wholesale destruction in the organic world and accumulation of the destroyed organic being in certain territory the presence of crude oil deposits cannot even be questioned irrespective of the presence or absence of structures the second task of the geologist is to account for the accumulation of the oil in commercial quantities for this oil geologists invoke the theory of migration of oil this theory is a most unscientific unreasonable and untenable theory and is disproved by the oil wells in every everl I 1 oil field known in every known oil field crude oil is found in organic sediments what are these organic sediments destroyed organic materials deposited in oceanic sand and fluvial in these sediments which were all level in their origin was the crude oil formed now if crude oil is is found in organic 6 sediments it proves that it did not move out of the territory where the crude oil was formed by slow natural chemical process in other words it did not migrate or if it did migrate it would not be in the organic sediments beside this we ave know that crude oil deposits are found between two impervious strata from which the crude oil fortunately for us cannot escape therefore oil cannot migrate imprisonment of the oil between two impervious strata and migration are irreconcilably opposed to each other oil migrates only if it is forced to do so which is done by the destruction or disruption of the impervious bed rocks in which the oil is imprisoned the destruction was ivas caused by the forces of nature by disturbances which caused the erection of the so called structures when disturbances tur bances took place in a territory where crude oil existed already the impervious beds we were re destroyed and consequently the oil was liberated from its imprisonment and flowed to the structures and accumulated under the atres ires where the earth was loosened and many times large devices crevices and smaller or larger holes were made in this way ay the structures play an important role jin in the batio tion 11 of crude oil 1 argues for oil in salt lake basin but as crude oil existed In millions illions of years without and before the formation of structures it certainly can call and does exist even today without structures and if we can find or let us say happen to find the undestroyed oil beds and drill into them a well which will disrupt the impervious stratum the oil will be forced out of its original undestroyed bed just as it is forced out of the structures ures structures occupy comparatively small part of the territory where organic sediments were built up therefore e crude oil must exist outside of the structures also it is not necessary for me to emphasize the truth that there are millions of structures on the surface of the earth without a drop of oil and but very few with oil in if disturbances tur bances which caused the formation of structures took place in a territory where oil deposits existed already then structures will have oil but not otherwise As we see structures are accidental features on the earth therefore they cannot guide us in our endeavor of locating oil deposits the geological 6 history of |