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As an industry approaches stabilization, greater and greater stress must be laid on its technologic progress, which becomes a prime aid in improving its condition. The oil industry is tending toward this stage and hence its engineers must be pressed into greater service to prevent stabilization and stagnation from becoming synonymous, and to supply, either by improvements in processes or by new machinery, a means of obtaining savings in raw and finished products. Thus profits can be assured warranting continued investment. It may be repeated, technology must apply a slight improvement here, a change there, or a complete renovation, to eliminate inefficiencies and make each dollar invested yield greater results. The profits of yesterday were made of rich strikes, of monopolized patents or processes, of control of prices and of markets. Sixty-five years of growth, of large investment, of healthful competition, and of expanding markets, have put the oil industry in the foremost rank of world industries. Just as the railroads passed a similar period of expansion and growth, and are being stabilized with reasonable profits, so the oil industry must take advantage of the efforts of its engineers and experts to promote its healthful growth and a better service to the people. Herein is attempted a review of recent progress in which is presented the advances in exploration, production engineering, transportation, refining and greater efficiency in uses of petroleum, with a view not only to stressing important new processes and methods, but also the problems that press for solution. This review can only touch outstanding developments of recent years, but the several Petroleum-Division symposiums of our program will present details worthy of attention. Geology offers directly little new in the technique of oil-findingmajor stress being laid on improvement in subsurface correlation by means of foraminiferal studies, additions to the knowledge of which are being made, slowly but surely, and by means of mineral, and especially heavy mineral, determinations in well samples. As if to prove the theory that man's ingenuity rises to the requirements of his age-just at a time when the geologist had reached the point where map able geologic structures were becoming as scarce as dinosaur eggs, and far more valuable (despite our present apparent flood of oil production)-the physicist has offered the two types of instruments which will permit, under special conditions, the location of salt domes, faults and anticlines.
- Geology > Structural Geology > Tectonics (0.54)
- Geology > Mineral (0.54)
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Appalachian Basin > Bradford Field (0.99)
- South America > Venezuela (0.89)
- North America > United States > Gulf of Mexico > Gulf Coast Basin (0.89)
Published in Petroleum Transactions, AIME, Volume 52, 1916, pages 649–656. With portions of two coal basins within its borders and a few scattered fields already developed, the question arises: What is the future of Kentucky as an oil-producing State? Is the long list of failures due to lack of commercial pools, or unintelligent prospecting? A study of its beds and irregularities of structure points not only to a large waste of development money on unpromising areas, but also to the presence of a few structures well worthy of development. The surface rocks of Kentucky show in succession more than 4,000 ft. of Paleozoic sediments and more than 2,000 ft. of Cretaceous, Tertiary, and more recent deposits. Folding and erosion have brought these beds to the surface, where they have been observed and studied in detail by my associate, James H. Gardner, myself, and others. This has given opportunity to observe the beds offering suitable reservoirs and having the proper impermeable covering; also the mapping of outcrops and out- crop lines, taken in conjunction with available well records, indicates that certain areas are worth testing, and with even greater definiteness shows areas which should be excluded, as devoid of possibilities. West of the Tennessee River, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and Quaternary sediments occur so that all trace of ancient folding is obliterated, the sediments overlapping unconformably Mississippian rocks. This area embraces 2,000 square miles, or one-twentieth of the area of the State, the Paleozoic rocks covering the remainder. Since there is nothing upon which to base the location of tests for oil and gas in the Cretaceous- Tertiary beds of Kentucky, the Paleozoic area will be chiefly considered. The distribution of Paleozoic rocks in Kentucky is centered about the north-northeast striking Cincinnati geanticline, bringing to the surface on the Jessamine dome the oldest rocks exposed in the State, those of the Devonian, Silurian, and Ordovician systems. On either flank of this great earth-arch are the Mississippian rocks, sloping gradually beneath the coal-measure basins to the west and to the east. West of the western coal basin, and. between it and the Cretaceous-Tertiary rocks further west, is a high area of Mississippian rocks. Crossing the State in an east-west direction is the Chestnut Ridge anticline (a disturbance recently shown by Mr. Gardner to extend from the Ozarks to the Appalachian), consisting in Kentucky of the Rough Creek uplift, the Kentucky River fault zone, and the Warfield anticline. T.P. 051–46
- Phanerozoic > Paleozoic > Carboniferous > Mississippian (0.90)
- Phanerozoic > Mesozoic > Cretaceous (0.85)
- Phanerozoic > Cenozoic > Tertiary (0.54)
- Geology > Structural Geology > Tectonics > Compressional Tectonics > Fold and Thrust Belt (1.00)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock (1.00)
- North America > United States > Texas > West Gulf Coast Tertiary Basin > Buchanan Field (0.89)
- North America > United States > Texas > Fort Worth Basin > Bridgeport Field > Barnett Shale Formation (0.89)
- North America > United States > Pennsylvania > Meade Field (0.89)
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