The age-herald., 1901-06-19
GEOLOGICAL FORMATION
 OF PETROLEUM REGIONS
BY EUGENE A. sMIrH. UNIVERSITY oF ALAeAMA

ters at the surface and the existence of productive pools of petroleum below, al- though the probabilities of finding oil where the tar spring is a surface indica- tions are greater than where no indica- ton whatever exists.
 Tn most places where bitumineus mat ters occur there is more or less of Iron pyrites, the decomposition of which gives rise to sulphuretted hydrogen, sour wa- ter. deposition of sulphur, etc, which are often noticed in connection with petrol- cum. All these, therefore, may be looked upon as favorable indications, but with limitations, since all of them may be observed where there Is no oil.
 Beyond the Tennessee valley to the southward the anticlinal arch which, in its eroded part constitutes the Blount Springs or Browns valley, extends to the southwestward below Ried's Gap as an unbroken arch or fold, sinking gradually to level below Toadvine ip Jefferson County.
 This arch known in part of its course as the Democrat Ridge, is by it's struc- ture favorable for the retention of oil and gas provided they exist in the under lying strata--which has not yet been demonstrated.
 As to south Alabama and the connec- ton with the Beaumont fields, Professor 1t1ll InlnkSs ana apparently With 6ooh reason, that in Texas the oil occurs in the strata of the tertiary formation, while Professor Harris and others believe that 1t comes from the still older Cretaceous rocks, warped up into a fold and thus brought comparatively near the surface in the Texas coasted plain. Now the later tertiary formations which make the country about Beaumont extend In wide belt eastward across the great delta @P ft,o T.ntt and Western Mississippi, narrowing down very materially before the Alabama line is reached. These formations, according ly in Alabama occupy much narrower belt than they do in the states above named and oil, if it should occur in our state under the identical conditions that obtain in the other states named, should be looked for at no great distance from the coast in Mobile and Baldwin Coun- ties. But all of our tertiatu strata con- tain an abundance of bituminous matters in the form of Ignite beds. etc., which might easily be conceived to be the sources of more refined bituminous prod ucts, oil and gas.
 In the Beaumont region, according to Professor Hill, the practical oil men take into account in locating their borings certain Indications" which 1t worth while to mention again. quoting from Professor Hill: 1. The oil Is accompanied by great quantities of sulphuretted n.y. drogen gas. 2. The strata above the areas where there is great oil saturation, being of unconsolidated nature, in many cases permit the sulphuretted hydrogen gas to percolate upwards until 1t reaches the surface, producing set Of phenom- ei1a as follows: gas bubbles in pools Of water; sour or acid water acidulated by the gases; the deposition of small par ticles of sulphur at the surface or Ill porous strata beneath the surface.
 In our coastal plain region, as in North Alabama, it must be remembered that while bituminous matters prevail very generally in the strata, 1t Is certain that oil, if occurring at all, will not be uni- formly distributed. since the strata themselves vary greatly from place to place in porosty, quality, etc, and nothing short of actual experimentation will prove the existence of oil or denne the limits of productive oil when found.
 From all this trust it will be clear that in a region like Alabama, practically untrfed in this respect, no one can safely predict anything about oil or gas All that one can do is to point out some of the peculiarities of strata and structure, and the surface indications which may be considered as favorable and which give greater promise of success in boring for oil in certain regions than in others. l have already mentioned the Tennessee Valley, the Democrat Ridge, the salt well region of Choctaw, Washington and Clarke counties as possessing some feat ures of greater promise than others.
 It is of course, inevitable that "old oil men," "practical oil men," and the like. will swarm over the country claiming to have traced the oil-bearing rocks from Pennsylvania and Ohio through Ken lucky, Tennessee and Alabama, direct to Beaumont, Tex. To this assertion it may be answered that the surrounding condi- tions and the geological horizons of the oil in Texas differ in all respects from those obtaining in the Eastern and North ern States, and that there is absolutely no connection between the two; and, sec- ond, that nothing short of actual borings and findings of the oil can demonstrate the continuity of the oil fields, and we all know that in Alabama the borings have certainly been neither sufficiently numerous nor productive enough in re- suits to base upon them any unqualified statements as to the location of oil hori- zons with us, or even as to their ex- istence.
 Those who care to study the subject more closely should consult the tenth census report on petroleum, and the min eral resource volumes of the United States geological survey. As regards Alabama, all that Is definitely known apout the occurreHce ol oll VIII pe lounu recorded in our geological report on the valley regions, Part l, and in a paper on the subject by Prof. Henry McCally, pub lished in Vol I. Part I, of the proceedings of the Alabama Industrial and Scientific Society, both to be had on application at this office, and enclosing the stamps for postage 12 cents. The geological report, which is concerned with the territory and gretaceous formations Is the report on the coastal plain. postage F cents.