WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 421 



.Prospective Oil and Gas Areas, Skin Creek District. 

 The fact that Skin Creek District does not contain any anti- 

 clines or synclines, but has only a monoclinal structure, with 

 few abrupt changes of dip, as well as the additional informa- 

 tion supplied by the records of the several wells drilled in or 

 around it, few of which have been producers of consequence, 

 leads to the belief that further drilling will prove hazardous. 

 The following suggestions are offered regarding the further 

 testing of this district: (1), The presence of gas in the lower 

 sands in the western part of the district and also in the same 

 group of sands along the Upshur Line, both on the head of 

 Stonecoal and at Frenchton, makes it seem probable that 

 these three gas areas could be connected by wells drilled 

 along Big and Little Skin Creeks. (2), The show of Big 

 Injun oil in Wells Nos. 552, 556 and 559, and the oil found 

 in the Fourth Sand in Wells Nos. 547 and 550, as well as 

 considerable gas in the same sands along the Upshur Line, 

 offers a faint hope that oil may be found at the cove-like 

 structural terrace on Straight Run of the Right Fork of 

 Stonecoal Creek, and along the wide terrace north of Vandalia, 

 between the 1325 and 1350-foot structure contours in the 

 vicinity of Pine Knob. 



Detailed Well Records, Collins Settlement District. 



Collins Settlement District, occupying the extreme south- 

 eastern part of the county, and having its structure diversi- 

 fied by the Orlando Anticline, and the Roanoke Syncline 

 along its western border and the long monoclinal slope on 

 the east and south, has been prospected to a considerable ex- 

 tent for oil and gas, with fairly successful results on the west 

 and indifferent returns on the east and south. No producing 

 oil wells have been found, although important showings have 

 been made in several localities, but gas is found in considera- 

 ble volume in the western part. 



Just north of Frenchton in Upshur County, near the Col- 

 lins Settlement District Line, six wells have been drilled, 

 some of which produce gas. The Hazen Phillips No. 2659 

 (560) was a light gasser from the Thirty-foot Sand and the 



