OCR Text |
Show IS P Geology Reveals Uintah Basin As Potential Oil And Gas Area . ', by Ray E. Collon, Sc. D. Petroleum Geologist The almost virgin territory represented in the confines of the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado is presently coming in for extensive ex-tensive field . exploratory work, especially on the Utah side in Uintah and Duchesne counties. In the development of the Rang-le Rang-le yfield on the Colorado side, where many wells are producing from the Weber sandstone; a few weeks ago, a new producing horizon hor-izon was encountered, i.e. the Shinarump sandstone which lies approximately 700 feet above the top of the Weber formation. It has caused increased attention to be focused on the area, by both major and independent oil operators. And at this writing, there is! a "wild" scramble to obtain1 blocks of acreage on the Utah side. I The Uintah Basin area covers 13,600 square miles in northwestern north-western Colorado and northeastern north-eastern Utah, being largely a major structural basin lying between be-tween major uplifts and abutting abut-ting against the faulted Wasatch Mountains on the west. It is believed be-lieved on the basis of preliminary prelimin-ary geophysical reports from the Vernal area of Uintah county, to contain at least 20,000 feet of explorable strata in the deeper parts of the. area, ranging in geologic geo-logic age from the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic era, to the Clocene period of the Sen ozoic era. The deepest well in the area on the Colorado side that drilled a normal section, began in Upper Up-per Cretaceous marine (sea) shale and stopped in Pennsylvan-ian Pennsylvan-ian sandstone at a total depth of 7,173 feet. The records of this well and of other wells drilled indicate that the Paleozoic section is largely thick continental sandstone sand-stone and shale, marine (sea) limestone, and some local evap-orites, evap-orites, I The thick Mesozoic strata beds are largely f0rm,j j tinental sandstone 2Sd S ' the .top and bottom" yening shale. The TerJ? 1 toon continental tt5Jjj j The unconformity nh several places just outsit , ea drilled of particuW,1. to oil seekers K $ tween the Pre-Cambrfc overlapping strata be& TS' anly Triassic and Jiir-Hftf wedges of intervdemngrag pear short distancV from points of exposed s? 3 Locally, here in uffi Vf chesne counties and rS1 in the Vernal-Roosevel t the older strata beds resLV1 pre-Cambrian just oJSf! V area, and within it most 7 J formations fve erosion? conformities a. their baaf 1 Within the Uintah Basin" amount of oil occur in & ceous beds at Rangely 9nT; H Beque, Colorado, tnd XV present in the PennsM beds at Rangely. Hovvevcrt H 1 petroleum production at x ly comes from the Webi $ stone, and the newly dhL? oil horizon from The sfiS formation, which is also aJ? sandstone. lsapo: The Uintah Basin has not JiW heretofore extensively for o-l and natural pas SS for (1) there is a g?k J nounced surface deforma&S depths to promising ofi-V were formerly believed to V relatively excessive (3) VP market conditions. Khi However, the last four has seen increased interest iftl" Basin, especially on the n side and the difficulties forSf 1 !v feared by the petrolX dustry are rapidly being 0T3 come by field geophysics, suEL geoJpgic study and marketing conditions for foT ceo'ion of new oil recovpredlth NOTE: The local peoloek uation, reviewing Old Mc ' Nature's work here milW'Da years before the advent of )k Ji will be dismissed in theneaj sue of the Roosevelt Standard ij |