Naturally occurring oil seeps are found throughout the world. Oil seeps in the Rozel Point area have been known since the late 1800s. Thick, black tar-like or asphaltic oil has flowed from these seeps for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The oil issues from craterlets whose cones are 12 to 18 inches high and 20 to 40 feet in diameter. The submerged seeps are irregularly distributed from the shore in an east- southeasterly direction for about a half mile.
Oil emerges from the seeps migrating along faults and fractures in the bedrock beneath the lake.
There are no estimates of rates at which the oil flows from the seeps. When the area is covered by water, the oil issues as small, worm-like stringers. The oil is carried away from the seeps by waves and deposited along the shoreline around Rozel Point. In the heat of the summer, the shoreline deposits of oil warm up and slowly flow, covering the rocks, beach sands, and abandoned oil-field equipment. The first attempts to produce oil in the Rozel Point area began around 1904.