10 
OIL DISTRICTS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 
of Lion Canyon, where a thickness of between 50 and 100 feet in a 
single body is attained, the colors being rusty, gray, red, blue, and 
black. 
RED BEDS SOUTH OF THE SANTA CLARA. 
Certain evidence, which is as yet inconclusive, leads to the belief that 
south of Santa Clara River the Sespe formation is represented l> 3 r a 
succession of gray and red-banded sandstones and coarse arenaceous 
clays that are conspicuous along the lower slopes of Oak Ridge. The 
rocks correspond in composition to those of Sespe Canyon. The red 
color is similar in both localities, and the overlying formation in both 
instances bears lower Miocene fossils. In the heart of the anticline 
which passes along the front of Oak Ridge a short distance above its 
base the Sespe consists of a massive rusty-yellow sandstone, bearing 
layers of small granitic pebbles. The sandstone in fresh fractures is 
locally brown, apparently from having once been impregnated with 
petroleum. Immediately overlying it are from 150 to 400 feet of 
banded bright-red and gray sandstones, argillaceous sands, and arena¬ 
ceous clays. The transition is in some instances gradual, in others 
sharp and pronounced. The red and gray beds are also repeated 
beneath the rusty-yellow sandstone first described, as is evidenced in 
the wells of the Bardsdale Crude Oil Company, sunk adjacent to the 
axis of the anticline, a mile west of Grimes Canyon. Both red and 
gray beds are locally conglomeratic, the pebbles comprising clear 
quartz, red and blue quartzites, granite, chert, eruptives, and meta- 
morphic rocks of several varieties. Small bodies of white limestone 
also occur here and there, interbedded in the formation. 
OIL IN THE RED BEDS. 
North of the Santa Clara oil has been produced in considerable 
quantity at a number of horizons in the red beds, and south of the 
river, in at least one locality, the suggested homologues have also 
yielded some oil. 
UPPER ZONE. 
Immediately overlying the body of red beds is about 500 feet of 
ferruginous, greenish-gray calcareous sandstone, in layers 8 to 10 feet 
thick, separated by thin bands of shale. Certain beds of the sand¬ 
stone are so calcareous as to be almost sandy limestones. These are 
fossiliferous in many places, although no well-preserved forms were 
obtained. Oysters appear to predominate. The zone of sandstone 
thus defined is best seen in the ridge dividing Little Sespe Creek and 
its tributary, Fourfork Creek, from Tar Creek, and in the valley of the 
latter, where it appears as a conspicuous parting between the red beds 
below and the great series of Vaqueros shales above. 
