Graham guardian., 1919-09-19
GEOLOGICAL REPORT
On the Properties of the Bear
Springs Oil, Gas and Water
Co., Graham County, ,Ariz.
By WALTER c. GAYHART

purpose of making money either fo
the promoters or for the stockholders
In the former case, the money is mad,
out of the victimized investors and il
the latter case is made for the investors
out of the ground. 1t was only after
had satisfied myself of the sincerit,
and good faith of the incorporators Of
the Bear Springs Oil. Gas and Water
Company that undertook the eXami
nation of the field herein covered anc
used my utmost endeavor to form cor
rect conclusions from natures dats
spread before me-conclusions that
trust future exploitation may verify.
Before answering the question" Doe:
the showing at Bear Springs justify the
sinking of test well?" it may perhaps
not be amiss to touch somewhat upor
the geological history of this part OF
Arizona, the genesis of petroleum anc
the line of reasoning upon which my
conclusions are founded. Arizona con-
tains rocks of every system and OF
nearly every series an(: even group,
and affords field to the geologist the
most interesting of all the states with
which | am familiar.
Since the third day of the creation
some hundred million years or more
ago, when the waters under the heaven
were gathered together into one place
and the dry land appeared for the first
time, the sea has waged perpetual,
ceaseless warfare against the dry land
rocks, lands and continents have been
time and again swept away, ground to
pieces and washed into the sea, to be
there again~cemented into rock, layer
Upon layer, The thin crust of the earth
itself was kept ever rising and falling
like the top crust of pie in baking,
forced up by the pressure OF the heated
gases below, while from assures, both
OH land and under the waters, would
pour out molten masses, converting a
sea into vapor to be precipitated again
into floods washing all before them into
the sea.
Millions of years were doubtless con-
sumed in this process of kneading, mix
ing and stirring the ingredients of the
primitive crust until it had attained a
thickness and solidarity to insure per-
manence of at-least portions of this
original crust to the present time. This
is the rock of the Archaean time and
comprises the Laurential System. Since
the only Archaean rock that we can see
is that which was raised in Archaean
time and was never again depressed be-
low the water to receive sediments, or,
having been SO depressed and covered
up and again brought above water level,
has had such deposits eroded off, it fol-
lows that not much outcrop exists.
There are vast areas of it in northeast
ern Canada, Sweden, and some in Ari-
zona and New Mexico. Strata are 50,-
900 feet thick-always metamorphic-
always contorted, and usually rich in
iron. 1t is the age WITHOUT life; but
from the presence OF vast beds of
graphite, iron, lime and marble that
are found in the Laurentian. we know
that organic life, both animal and vege-
table, was abundant. The length of
earth time up to the close of the Arch
aean Age is greater than all that has
since elapsed. At the close of the
Archaean time all of the United States
was covered by ocean, except here and
there mountain range-folds of the
earth's crust rising high above the
waters and the greater part of eastern
Canada and Labrador. In our own
vicinity, Mount Graham, with an ele-
yation Of probably five or Six times its
present height, with its chain to the
southeast and northwest, looked out
over this sea of turbid water. The sec.
ond great age is called the Paleozic-
the age of 'early life forms-the Pri-
mary Rock System. This age is divided
into the following subordinate ages and
rock systems: The Cambrian, Ordo-
vician, Silurian, Devonian, Carbonifer-
Gus and Permian Frequently classed as
a part of the Carboniferous). These
constitute the series of interest to us
in connection with the finding of petro-
leum. If found at all in this valley, it
will be in the lower group of the Car
boniferous-the Mississippian-or in
the Devonian lying beneath.
At the close of the Archaean Age,
there was laid down over all southeast
ern Arizona and probably extending
largely across New Mexico and Texas,
series of Cambrian formations, quartz
ite, limestones. shales and sandstones.
resting unconformibly upon the up
turned edges and folds of the Archaean
beneath. Following this Cambrian per-
iod, for southeastern Arizona must have
come long period of emergence from
the sea, and erosion of the late Cam
brian formations; since, during the
period when Ordovician and Silurian
series are elsewhere being laid down,
none was formed here, but the Cam
brian was probably half or more eroded.
OF the Cambrian strata there remain
about 1000 feet. From the close of
the Cambrian to the beginning of the
was the greatest lime
forming period of the world existence.
The seas teemed with low forms of an
imal life that SC Gcreted from the calcar-
eous waters of the ocean, lime for their
shells. No great physical change oc-
Cured between the Silurian and the
Devonan; yet with little interlude we
find the Devonian sea filled with fish
kinds never seen before and that be-
came extinct during the succeeding
periods.
Formations of lime were form I'd that
aggregate three miles TO five miles
thick, and the various animals, large to
small 10 microscopic, that lived in the
shells that formed the lime, each con-
tributed its quota to the rock oil now
50 earnestly sought. Do these figures
seem unreasonably large? If there
were ANIMALS enough in the sea to pre-
cipitate ONE inch on the sea bottom
in ONE YEAR, it would form in 60. 900
years mass of oil-bearing sediment
ONE MILE thick. or FIFTEEN MILES
in ONE MILLION Years; and million
years marks but short chapter in the
geological history of the world.
Much, very much, of this oil has been
decomposed and lost to these rocks; dis
sipated IN a score of ways to become
absorbed in some other department of
nature; hut, yet much, very much, of
this oil still remains wherever this oil