Imperial Valley press., 1919-09-17
OIL EXPERT Is
ENTHUSIASTIC
OVER VALLEY

Ia. vi. SNCsllS. SNpCAN SSOAbs~ A.
and engineer. has prepared an articl
on Imperial Valley as an oil field, il
which he is very optomistic over th
possibilities. Mr.. Slieats is located il
San Diego.
His article in full is as follows:
There is something fascinating
about the desert country around I'm
perial 1t appeals very strongly tc
our imagination and even to ones
sense of propriety and general fitness
of things.
Too often YOU ride for house over q
! hot. dry. sandy waste with some OBJ
/ ject in view, hoping to find something
worth while, only to encounter moth
! ing and more hot, dusty eXpaRse be-
yond In this deseret there is nought
Of this~-When you come to any OBJ
Fject here. YOU have something Of in
terest and something that leads you
on.
Perhaps you see a sand heap in
the distance and mildly expect to find
a. small dome blown up by the wind
as you often see in other deserts.
Here, there is no knowing what you
may find. 1t may be the upturned
edge of a rock. made of innumerabe
small oyster shells; it may be sand
dcme with small water spring on
top of it; Or there may be an oil
seep on top; or possibly it is a sandy
stratum kept from breaking down by
q lava flow on top Of it; or again it
may be protected by a layer of gravel
on top, and there is no knowing what
the stones fthis gravel consist Of
Precious stones are fairly common
and gold nuggets may be looked for
with quite possibility of success.
1t is a land of enchantment. But
after due study, what chiefly strikes
the geologist is the great possibility
this country has as a future oil field. /
And the more you study the matter
The more convinced do you become
that it only awaits the drill to make !
this desert one of the great oil CEN
.ers.
We have no other oil field in Amer |
ica to which we can look to learn
anything about this unique district
it stands by itself hele. There is
only one other field of similar ma
ture with which to compare it. that
the writer knows of and that is the
Gil and world famous field of Russia,
near the Caspian Sea. There you
have not only the same low level |
warm conditions, but you have the
mud volcanoes, the salt springs and
the asphaltum. You find he oil
there in the tertiary strata, the age
10 which the strata belong in the
Colorado Desert, and lastly-and this
is very comforting to know--you find
the Gil in the Russian field close up
against the igneous rock, which that
has the same as we.
In Russie, the oil is not deep. I
10 not expect it to be deep here. Our
best oil producing material crops up
On the surface in many places. For !
some unknown reason possibly "the
of human nature peo-
pie IN the past seemed to have chosen
,hese good locking" places to put
their wells down on. If you think
minute YOU will agree that you want
70 put the we'll down where it will
reach these rich organic remains at
a suitable depth.
There is another phase Of this dis
-rict which requires consideration.
There are at least four large faults in
the area where we may hope for o!G.
and we do not know yet how these
faults influence the accumulation of
oil. They may act as drain and let
the oil down to a lower stratum; they
may act as reservoirs and wells put
down on them may astonish the world
as thev did near Tampico, Mexico,
where well of huge yield was struck
in a fault; or again one fault may
act one way, another another. One
should remember, too, that fault
generally causes an anticlinal struc
ture on one side Of it, and possibly a
syniclinal one on the other. This is
plainly visible to any one who will
visit the southeast corner of Fish
Greek Mountain where one Of the
large faults passes.
This desert has so much of inter
est in it that one letter on its re-
sources is hardly enough to even
arouse interest in it. | propose to
write a short series of these letters
which will appear from time to time,
dealing with the various possible
riches the peculiar phenomena and
some legends that this land of the Sun
inherits.