THE KIRKUK ANTICLINE. 



45 



tially as possible the risks that will have to be taken by anyone 

 undertaking boring operations in this area. Assuming that the 

 small domes described north-west of the seepages are actual parts 

 .of the main anticlinal crest, the chances are not unfavourable that 

 the latter is, for the length -of at least a mile, sufficiently intact to 

 have conserved any oil-pools that may exist below ; the copiousness 

 of the seepages also pre-dispose one to infer that these oil pools may 

 be remunerative, though probably not excessively so. The principal 

 risks to be faced arise from two factors : (i) our ignorance of the 

 -nature of the south-western limb of the anticline and therefore of 

 its degree of asymmetry ; and (ii) the depth at which remunerative 

 oil horizons might occur. A small sketch will best illustrate how 

 these factors affect^the question. 



Fig. 1. 



Supposing the fold to be of the shape shown in figure 1, in 

 which two oil-pools are indicated in black. Then it is obvious 

 that a boring sunk on the superficial crest would miss entirelv 

 the oil-pools. To reach the h'ghcr of the two the borino- would 

 have to be sunk somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of a 

 point « at a certain distance from the superficial crest, whereas 

 to reach the lower the boring would have to be located still further 

 in the same direction from the superficial crest at a point b. 1 

 That the south-western limb is steep or reversed is probable from 

 what we know of the fold elsewhere, but to what extent it is 

 overfolded at this particular spot we do not know. Nor do we 



know the depths at which the oil-pools — if they exist occur 



So that the difficulty is to gauge the correct distance north-east 



*See Ree. Geol. Sur. Ind., Vol. XXXIV, p. 2.53. 



