CHAPTER IV. 
DETAILED GEOLOGY OF OIL AND GAS.™ 
By ERASMUS HAWORTH. 
IL and gas are found in rocks of many different geological 
ages. In Indiana and western Ohio they are in the 
Trenton limestone, a member of the Lower Silurian or 
Ordovician. From here upwards the Pleistocene or recent 
rocks of every geological age, at one place or another, have been 
productive of oil or gas. It is difficult, in fact, to decide where 
the greatest production occurs. In the Appalachian region it 
is the Carboniferous and Devonian; in the Midcontinental field 
the Carboniferous; at Corsicana, Tex., and Florence, Colo., the 
Cretaceous. In different places in Wyoming oil is found in 
formations ranging from the Permian to the Upper Cretaceous. 
In California the Tertiary seems to be the most productive. At 
Beaumont, Tex., and adjacent parts of Louisiana, the forma- 
tions are Pleistocene or recent, and in the wonderful oil-fields 
of Russia on the western shores of the Caspian Sea oil is 
found in sands scarcely cemented together, belonging to the 
Oligocene and Miocene Tertiary. 
In Kansas and other parts of the Midcontinental field, as 
far as developments have shown up to July 1, 1908, both oil 
and gas are confined to the Coal Measures, with the exception 
of the small wells in the immediate vicinity of Muskogee, 
which apparently draw their supply from below the Missis- 
sippian. 
Oil and gas are most generally obtained in sandstone, but by 
no means always. Apparently the essential function of a 
sandstone in this connection is to supply an opening or void 
which may serve as a cistern or reservoir. Probably other rocks 
104. In this undertaking extracts will be made whenever desired from Bulletin 
238, U.S. G.S., because the detailed geology of the Iola quadrangle area was written 
by Haworth, and drawings for the same were made in this office under his imme- 
diate direction, the subjects being chosen by him, although they appear in the above- 
named bulletin as though they resulted from the labors of another. This error, or 
whatever it may be called, was due to the manuscript passing out of Haworth’s 
hands and supervision of its publication controlled by the party under whose name 
it appears in Bulletin 238. 
(161) 
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