100 
OIL DISTRICTS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 
PLACE RITA CANYON WELLS. 
Perhaps the most remarkable of all the oil fields, of California is an 
area of insignificant size in Placerita Canyon, 5 miles east of Newhall. 
The oil here is almost a naphtha, and its gravity is said to be above 50°. 
The yield is very slight. The remarkable feature in connection with 
the oil is its occurrence in crystalline schist which overlies the San 
Gabriel granite and which is in turn overlain at no great distance from 
the wells by rocks that are believed to be of the Fernando formation. 
Oil was discovered in shafting for gold. 
The schist in which the oil occurs is micaceous and granitic, con¬ 
spicuously banded, and greatly contorted. It strikes approximately 
N. 70° W. and dips 50°-80° N. The accompanying diagram (fig. 11) 
indicates the position of the wells. There are six in all, the three on 
the north belonging to the New Century Company and those on the 
south to Freeman & Nelson. The New Century wells are nearer the 
Fernando sandstone and con¬ 
glomerate, which approach 
within a few feet. It is said 
that one of these wells spout¬ 
ed high and that another 
barely flowed. The deepest 
well of the six is the southern¬ 
most of the Freeman & Nel¬ 
son group, which attained a 
depth of 1,030 feet. Oil is 
reported in this well at 410, 
613, and 682 feet. It is said 
to yield 5 or 6 barrels per 
day, with 30 or 40 barrels of 
water to each barrel of oil. 
In a tributary of Placerita Canyon, three-fourths of a mile east of 
the wells described above and in the same schist, is the Pioneer well, 
1,100 feet deep. It struck oil, but the yield could not be learned. 
The granite lies about three-fourths of a mile south of this well. 
The presence of oil under conditions similar to those that exist here 
is perhaps unknown in any other part of the world. It occurs from 
400 to 1,000 feet beneath the surface in a steeply dipping and close- 
textured crystalline schist. That a reservoir, even though small, 
exists m such rocks must be due, it would seem, to the fracturing of 
the schist, the natural result of the severe contortion to whicn it has 
been subjected. If the oil originated in the schist, or rather in the 
sediments from which tlie schist was metamorphosed, it is beyond 
comprehension that it should have remained in them under the tre- 
mcndous pressuie and heat to which the strata have unquestionably 
Fig. 11.— Sketch map showing location of Placerita 
Canyon wells, 5 miles east of Newhall. Heavy dots, 
wells. Figures indicate numbers and depths of wells. 
