Los Angeles herald., 1910-08-14
GREAT ACTIVITY
IN OIL FIELDS
EYES OF WORLD FOCUSED ON
SAN DIEGO a.
oTAY NOW DRILLING WHERE Ex-
PERT DECLARES FoRMA-
TloNs EXCELLENT

Marked by steady influx of capital,
an activity has begun in the oil fields
of San Diego county which gives
promise of opening up several new oil
fields and which will at any rate settle
the controversy one way or the other
as to whether or not there is oil in
either the Encinitas, Poway or Otay
oil fields.
Today there is not producing oil
well in San Diego county, but it must
be remembered that every California
oil well which today is producing was
at some time or another a wildcat.
Moreover, surface conditions were
never more favorable than they are in
both the Otay and Encinitas fields.
Two wells are now being drilled, and
both companies state that they have
gone down more than 1000 feet, and
that there is every indication that high
gravity oil will be struck at depth of
less than 1000 feet. There are also
a large number of companies who are
on the fence waiting for the Otay OIL
companys we'll to come in.
Hundreds of experts have gone over
the San Diego fields and many wells
have been drilled, although none to
depth of more than few hundred feet.
In one or two places in the ocean oil
is known to rise to the surface of the
water and judging by the surface out
groupings of fossiliferous and carboni-
ferrous rocks and oil seepages along the
coast there is a vast body of oil some
where beneath the surface of the
ground.
One well which was sunk some years
ago by the Victoria Oil company, near
La Costa, was abandoned after some
oil had been found on account of the
water which the inexperienced drillers
were unable to control.
GREAT INTEREST SHOWN
Much credit is due those who have
backed the present projects with
brains and money, and the entire oil
world is watching the wells as foot
by foot, they are drilled deeper and
deeper.
Prominent among the companies
which are now interested in these oil
fields are the Otay. whose well is now
down more than 1000 feet the Otay
Segundo, the San Elijo, the Encinitas
Oil company and the Lo Tengo COM
pahy.
The following is an extract from
report made by a leading California
geologist and recently published by
Los Angeles oil weekly:
Recently l travelled over most of
the territory from Encinitas north to
the Mexican line on the south. |
found an area about seven miles wide
by about fifty miles long near the
Pacific coast that is intermountain de-
pressions, mesas and valleys. due to
system of faults, the aspect of which
has been modified by erosion and
pleistocene wash of clay sand and
gravel. The formation is entirely
sedimentary with no basalt or acidic
rock shown anywhere. The carboni-
ferrous rocks that include Mississip-
plan and Pennsylvania lime stones,
are in evidence, and continue un-
known distances westward and dip
under the Pacific ocean, but about
twelve miles southeast of the city of
San Diego it reappears in conjunction
with the Devonian and is broken up
farther south by a burst of the Cam
brian.
SHOWING EXCELLENT
From any viewpoint as to the orig
in of petroleum, organic or inorganic,
this forms an ideal oil-bearing forma-
tion. The formation as thrust up
along fault lines makes several well
defined anticlines, exposing a vast
amount of oil formation.
"Oil-sand asphalt with strata of
limestone slate. shale, gypsum and
clay are found which are so neces-
sary to the deposition of and reten-