Laurel outlook., 1947-06-25
Search Rockies
For Oil Fields
Quest Of Biologists Is Long
And Tedious. but Not
Devoid of Romance.

NEW YORK. Although leader,
of the oil industry have given assur
ance that this country's petroleum
reserves will last many years
search for the liquid treasure hid
den deep in the earth goes on at ar
ever increasing pace. The Rocky
Mountain region is being intensively
explored by biologists for clues thai
might lead to opening of new fields
The Rocky Mountain area is q
biologists heaven for the pursuit o.
clues, for at no other place on this
continent are the geological struc-
lures so plainly visible. Despite
that, however, the work of the oil
geologist is long, tedious and hard,
yet climaxed with romance and re-
ward when his scientific "~guesses''
prove right. These men call them
selves "rock hounds" for they can
read in the shape and pattern of
rock formations the story of what
lies below.
Nature Furnishes Clues.
The story of their work is told by
the Lamp, magazine of Standard
Oil company, as follows:
"By the nature of his occupation,
the rock hound is a man set apart
among men. He deals in hundreds
of square miles as another man
looks at a city block and thus to
him vast space is not overly awe
some. He distinguishes between
rocks that are 200 million years old
as against, say, o youthful stone
of a mere so million years, and SO
his time unwinds on a vastly differ
ent calendar"
The most common type of oil
structure for which the geologist
looks, the magazine explains, is
composed of folded layers of rock
that resemble somewhat an upside
down set of kitchen mixing bowls,
one inside the other. The constant
play of erosion on the top of the
''bowls" has worn into the layers,
exposing to view what rock hounds
call o%utcrops. These are his clues to
formations below.
The field work is done in the
warm months and then the geolo-
gists hibernate" to the city for
the winter to study the data they
collected. From aerial photographs,
inspected through three-dimensional
viewers, they get their prime hints
of rock exposures that might sug-
gest oil structures. They also sketch
roughly the o~utcroppings revealed
in their summer search. Then, with
a thorough knowledge of the ter
rain, they set out in the spring for
more minute studies.
ITO a rock hound" the Lamp
says, land to the apprentice who
is normally his only companion,
home on the range is likely to be a
trailer hauled painfully over a
sheep track so miles or so from a
highway. With their trailer parked
near a s~heepherder's water hole,
the two biologists have a base from
which they explore lands even more
remote.
Trailer a Social Center.
"From June to October, except
for weekend trips to a town for sup
plies, that trailer is dwelling, office
and social center for the rock
hounds and their acquaintance of
the field, the itinerant and laconic
sheepherders. When canned foods
pail, a rifle is a handy bolsterer of
the meat supply in this land of wild
game.
"The rock hound in the North
west may pass an entire summer
a vast and obscure struc-
ture, and still have to leave some
work for next summer. He may,
with exceptional luck, stumble on a
structure in a few weeks. He may
turn up a potential reservoir as
small as a garden or as large as a
town. He may call on the instru-
ments of geophysics for a further
check on his findings, but he never
can be finally sure of his under
structure until the drill bit
chews into the earth to produce
either an oil well or a dry hole.
eff his work yields no more than
, dry hole he merely scores. up a
Dad guess and moves on to new
ields. Should this potential struc-
ure, however, turn into a major
producing field, the rock hound
.almly accepts the tribute due to :
me who has wrested from nature a
ecret hidden through untold mil
49, %