THE WEST POINT, TEXAS, SALT DOME 663 



and Edgerly; and fourthly, in sand lenses and shales on the sides 

 of the dome. 



By far the most important of these are the first and second types 

 of occurrence. The fourth type of occurrence might well be 

 included in the same class with the second type except at Humble, 

 where they are quite distinct. The third type of occurrence is 

 much more important than generally recognized and is generally 

 confused with the ''cap rock" or the first type of occurrence. 

 Spindletop is a fair example of a field where all of the production, 

 until quite recently, has been supposed to come from the cap rock 

 but where, in fact, much of it has come from shallow sands above 

 the cap rock. 



In view of the results obtained in the well north of. Llewellyn 

 Gin, which was drilled to the salt without any oil or gas production, 

 and particularly because of the shallow depth at which the salt 

 was encountered, prospects for cap-rock or shallow-sand production 

 on the West Point dome would seem to be very poor. This single 

 well is not a sufficient test of these possibilities, but the shallow 

 depth of the salt is an unfavorable condition. 



The possibility of finding oil and gas in the Cretaceous rocks on 

 the flank of the dome has hardly been touched and would seem to 

 justify the drilling of several deep wells. The most attractive area 

 is a circular strip extending around this dome and from the base 

 of the central topographic mound to about a half mile from it. 



In view of the failure of the wells of the Texas Company on the 

 flank of the Keechi dome, oil prospectors do not regard the interior 

 domes with much favor at the present time, but these Keechi tests 

 prove nothing but the barrenness of the limited area on which they 

 were drilled. Many salt domes of the coastal group had been 

 prospected intermittently for years before production was found. 

 This is true of West Columbia and Goose Creek, the two most 

 important fields of the Gulf coastal plain today. 



The West Point dome shows every surface evidence of being a 

 possible container of oil and gas deposits and should be prospected. 



