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Show SAN JUAN RIVER OIL FIELD REVIEW It appear that local people have taken rery little Interest In the oil fields of this state. ' Bo many efforts have been made to revive Interest In tha oil poa-j Ibilitlts o Utah that Investors bava become be-come discouraged. It la aald that California Cali-fornia and eastern oil men are doing more for the development of this resource than Utah's own people, and In thla connection con-nection It may be of inter at to note the recent statement made by Arthur Lakes. In which ha says: "In Utah oil mining la In Its prospective prospec-tive stage. A new and geologically Interesting In-teresting field haa been opbned In aouth-em aouth-em Utah on the San Juan liver. The oil eeepagee occur along tha banka of tha river In a profound canyon comparable compar-able In ruggednese, depth and magnificent scenery to that of the Grand canyon district dis-trict of the Colorado river. The strata of thla part of tha plateau region are . i. if., ik. u mjt katxHa of the Jura-Trlaa above with tha Pernio-Carboniferous Pernio-Carboniferous below. It Is In porous limestones of the latter formation that the eeepagea occur above to the banka of tha at reams. The striking feature of the re loo Is that tha strata over many hundreds of square mllca are thrown Into a series of gigantic anticlines and correspond trig; syncllnes. Tha origin of this disturbance and compression Is the ovMle of a reaion of otherwise undisturbed undis-turbed horizontal rocks and, with no mountain chalna of any also In the neighborhood, neigh-borhood, would seem hard to account for. The probable causa piay be looked for In the numerous isolated laccollthic mountains scattered over the plateau. Surh aa the Sierra Carrlso, Abajo, La Sals. Ute mountain and others, with oc-ca oc-ca atonal remains of prominent dikes of eruptive rocks, such as shlprock, Al-bamhbra Al-bamhbra dike, and others. "Although these singular mountain maasee and dikes are not conspicuous In the region known aa the oil field. It seems not unlikely that tha doming up and compresalon of tha earth's cruat may have been formed by underground laccollthic lac-collthic dlsturbancea and masses of igneous ig-neous recks which had not power to reach the surface and who Intruded bod-lea bod-lea have not aa yet been uncovered and exposed by erosion. It seems not Improbable Im-probable that soma of the anticlinal folda and huge domes may conceal beneath them a mass of Igneous rock known aa laccolith. Suggestions of the existence of such appear In likes Ilka that of the A I ham bra cutting through the crests of some of the prominent antlcllnee, filling flesures connected with the laccolith below. be-low. That aome of these antlcllnee contain con-tain oil haa been ehown by boring. Upward Up-ward of forty companies have entered thla almost Inacceeelble field with aa many rigs, and have usually found a moderate amount of pumplag. light pe renin, oil at a depth within 1000 feet. No gushers have so far been found, though It ie not Impossible - that by further exploration such may occur. The profound canyon of the Sen Juan rtver haa for" an Indefinitely In-definitely long time drained the oil bearing bear-ing Bono and limestone by the aeepagea pouring Into the river. "The area may be comparable-In some respects to that of the Mexican fields, where petroleum haa In many caaee accumulate ac-cumulate against Igneous dlkee. which have perforated the oil bearing strata at many points. The dlkea arreat the ascending movement of petroleum where the contained etrata are Inclined, leading lead-ing sometimes to the accumulations of great .quantltlea at favorable pointa. A. B. Thompson says: " 'It Is probable that aome obscure elevated ele-vated structurea which -have proved production pro-duction of oil are due to laccoliths or the ascent far below the surface of Igneous Ig-neous maasee, aa to the existence of which there la only Indirect evidence. Such appeara to be the caee in eome of the Mexican flelde. and It .(fords ons of the few poealble explanation of the structure of the Island of Cheleken In the Caaplan eea. where Individual welle In highly faulted ground have yielded ee much aa M.000 tona of oil dally, equal In magnitude to the great Baku gush-era.' gush-era.' " |