OIL FIELDS COME BACK FIELDS ABANDONED TOO SOON MUST BE REDRILLED Some oil fields whose dwindling output seems to show that they must soon be abandoned may yield more oil in the future than in the past, and others that seem dead are likely to be resurrected, according to K. C. Heald, of the United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, who finds abundant evidence to support these statements in recent discoveries and developments, as well as in work done by the Survey. RESUSCITATION OF THE TIDIOUTE FIELD Only a short time ago most oil operators looked upon the old Tidioute field, in Warren County, Pa., as a field with little present and less future importance. Such wells as were being pumped yielded insignificant amounts of oil, and the general opinion was that the field had been so thoroughly drilled that further exploration would be futile. One man, however, refusing to share the general opinion, clung obstinately to the idea that the early drilling had not conclusively proved that the deep sands below the beds from which the wells were producing were barren of oil. Awaiting his opportunity he drilled a deep well, disregarding both skepticism and ridicule, and on August 5, 1922, when his drill bit into the Queen sand, 770 feet below the sand which had up to that time yielded most of the oil in the district, he obtained a flow of oil that silenced his critics and restored to importance one of the oldest producing fields in Pennsylvania. This new well in an old field yielded 500 barrels a day and was not only the best well drilled in the district, but one of the most productive wells drilled in recent years in the state. GUSHER IN THE OLD UNITY FIELD This successful well in the Tidioute field was still fresh in the minds of the operators in Pennsylvania when another old field in the state "came back" with an even larger producer. This well, in the Unity field, Allegheny County, which gushed at the rate of more than 1,400 barrels a day and took the title of "the biggest well of the year in Pennsylvania," again proved that drilling in old fields is likely to pay if it is intelligently directed. MANY NEW PRODUCTIVE WELLS IN OLD FIELDS Productive wells in old fields are not so uncommon as the publicity given the examples cited above might seem to indicate. In many a field two or more "booms" have followed the discovery either of new oilbearing beds below the ones first developed or of an extension of the field in some direction where the dry holes that bordered the area that was originally productive were due to some local cementation or to a lack of porosity or some other condition in the oil sand and did not mark the true edge of the pool. The surprisng thing is not that these discoveries are made but that they have led to so little drilling in search of new sands and of extensions of pools in fields where production started many years ago and that geologists so generally devote their time to a hunt for new producing areas and neglect so much the work that would lead to the complete development of the older fields. SUCCESSFUL NEW WELLS IN WESTERN FIELDS New discoveries in old fields are by no means limited to the Appara chian oil fields. In the mid-Continent fields more than one pool that was apparently nearing extinction has been brought back to its original productivity by some operator who refused to join in the belief that it had been exhausted, or by some newcomer who did not share the pessi mism regarding the future of the pool that the failure of test wells had brought to the older operators. A striking example is the Electra pool of northern Texas, which during the last year has gained a place among the more productive fields of Texas after years of insignificant production. Pools in eastern Oklahoma have been rejuvenated as one deep sand after another has been discovered. The old fields of eastern Kansas have been repeadedly extended during the last few years, lagrely through the efforts of optimistic geologists and operators whose study of the region had convinced them that it had not been thoroughly explored. HELP OF THE GEOLOGIST IS ESSENTIAL A good rule for those who look for new productive areas in old fields is that the older the field the better the chance that some oil has been overlooked. Twenty years ago operators were not so skillful as they are today, and they were also much quicker to believe that a pool had been completely drilled up or an area condemned than they are today. Also, and perhaps most important of all, they did not then have the advantage of the intensive application of geology to the discovery and development of oil that has contributed so much to the discovery of new pools, particularly in the mid-Continent, Rocky Mountain, and California fields, during the past five years. It may be confidently predicted that as new pools become scarcer and harder and more expensive to find, oil operators will call upon geologists more and more to study intensively the old pools, either those that have been abandoned or those that produce only small quantities of oil, and that the studies will result in the discovery of oil in territory that is now looked upon by most oil men as almost worthless. GEOLOGIC EVIDENCE IS FIRST REQUISITE OF SUCCESS A belief that many old oil fields are underdeveloped does not mean that random drilling in them is justifiable, any more than random drilling without geologic advice in wildcat areas is justifiable. The man who makes a drilling location merely because it is near old producing wells and depends on his luck to guide him to the right spot to discover an extension of the field, or one who drills in an old pool to find a new and deeper sand merely because of a "hunch" he may have that it is there has all the odds against him, and his chances for success are slight. Such operations are as senseless and ill-considered as it would be to purchase a second-hand automobile without knowing anything about its appearance, condition, or the distance it had run. There is little more common sense than there is in laying a pipe line to a drilling well before it is known whether or not the well will find oil. Haphazard drilling in old fields is particularly foolish and unjustifiable, for evidence is almost always available to tell whether or not there is a chance for new production, and facts can almost always be found to show where drilling would be most advisable. LOGS OF DEEP WELLS ARE VALUABLE In most districts where oil has been produced for a number of years a few scattered wells have been drilled deep. The records of these wells, combined with a study of the regional geology, and particularly of the geologic history, will tell whether or not there are formations below the producing beds which may be a source of oil and whether they include sands or other porous beds. Study of the geologic structure with the aid of well records will show the location of anticlines that may have formed traps for oil in the deep-lying beds. USE OF DIAMOND DRILL WILL HELP EXPLORATION The diamond drill, which is being used more and more in the search for oil, should be particularly helpful in extending old pools, for the core that it yields will reveal the exact character of the bed's it penetrates. If the sand in a dry edge vell is "tight." containing lime or other cementing material, it is reasonable to hope that the dry v ell no more indicates the edge of the pool thɛn & knot hole indicates where the edge of a plank may be, so that drilling beyond it, cutside the supposed limits of the pool, is justifiable. A RESIGNATION. Dr. Benjamin C. Gruenberg has resigned from the United States Public Health Service, Washington, where he has for the past two years worked on the Government's program of sex education in high schools and colleges, to study the problems of the educational use of motion pictures with the Urban Institute, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. Dr. Greunberg has been continuously engaged in educational work in New York since 1902. ANNOUNCEMENT. The Weston Electrical Instrument Co. of Newark, N. J., announces that Mr. G. P. Atkinson for several years connected with its Home Office Sales Organization has opened an office in Atlanta, Georgia, for the territories of Georgia, South Carolina and Northern Alabama. In addition to Weston Instruments, Mr. Atkinson has several other Nationally recognized lines of electrical equipment. PROGRAM FOR SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF SCIENCE Business Meeting: Election of officers. Address, "Science Teaching in Schools and Colleges," Dr. Charles L. Reese, Chemical Director, E. L. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Symposium, "Outstanding Problems of the Science Curriculum." (Ten-minutes papers.) "The Present Status of Science in the High Schools of New York City," Rosemary F. Mullen, Chairman of Science Dept., Washington Irving High School, New York City. "The Ideal Science Curriculum for the High School," J. M. Arthur, Science Master, Tome School, Port Deposit, Md. "The Elective System and the Science Curriculum in the Secondary School," Henry M. Snyder, Head of Science Dept., Wilmington High School, Wilmington, Del. "Biology in the Science Curriculum," Winifred J. Robinson, Dean of Women's College, Univ. of Del., Newark, Del. "The Status of the American Chemical Society on the Correlation of High School and College Chemistry," Neil E. Gordon, Head of Chemistry Dept., Univ. of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, Secretary of Chemical Education Section, American Chemical Society. Address, "The Relation Between Science and Modern Religious Thought," Dr. S. C. Schmucker, Professor of Biology, State Normal School, West Chester, Pa. THE MISSOURI RIVER The Missouri is one of the great drainage channels of the United States, measuring in total length about 2,400 miles. According to the United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, it drains 527,155 square miles, a territory as great as that embraced in all the States south of New York and east of the Mississippi, except Indiana and Illinois. Although the Missouri is no longer utilized to any extent as a means of communication and transportation, it is destined to play & large part in the development of its drainage basin by furnishing water for irrigation and generating power. NITRATES IN SOUTHEASTERN CALIFORNIA Nitrogen is needed in large quantities for use in fertilizers, in explosives required in engineering and mining, and in munitions made for national defense in war. During the World War the demand for nitrates became so urgent that every known source of them in the United States was ransacked to find enough to supply our ever-increasing needs. The world's storehouse for nitrates is Chile, but the growing menace of the submarine made it imperative to divert to other uses the shipping then engaged in the Chile nitrate trade. Small quantities of nitrates are found in almost every region where the rainfall is very small. The most promising deposits in the United States were those in the Amargosa region, in southeastern California. Before the war some of these deposits had been examined several times, chiefly by private companies that sought to obtain capital for their exploitation, but the reports made were so conflicting that the United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, decided to make a careful study of all the deposits in that region. The nitrate-bearing material, or “caliche,' as it is called in California, resembles in character and mode of occurrence the well-known caliche found in Chile, but is it much poorer and thinner. It forms a layer a few inches thick that lies less than a foot below the surface, at the plane of contact between the unaltered bedrock, which there consists chiefly of beds of Tertiary clay shale and the overlying clay soil. A white powdery layer, composed chiefly of sulphate of sodium and calcium, nearly everywhere lies between the caliche and the clay soil. The caliche cuts across successive tilted beds of the underlying clay shale and is thus clearly independent of the geologic structure. In the examination made by the Geological Survey maps and cross sections were made at many places. Scores of trenches and hundreds of pits were dug down to or into the bedrock, and the soil, caliche, and bedrock were than systematically sampled. Many hundred qualitative tests and nearly a thousand qauntitative analyses of the caliche were made. The commercial development of the deposits, though they are the most promising in the country, was found to be impracticable, but the results of the investigation should set at rest any uncertainties as to the nature or quantity of the nitrates in the areas examined and should serve as a guide in the exploration of other supposedly nitrate-bearing regions. An account of this investigation is given in the Geological Survey's Bulletin 724, on Nitrate Deposits in the Amargosa Region, Southeastern California, by L. F. Noble, G. R. Mansfield, and others. I PROBLEM DEPARTMENT. Conducted by J. A. Nyberg. Hyde Park High School, Chicago. This department aims to provide problems of varying degrees of difficulty which will interest anyone engaged in the study of mathematics. All readers are invited to propose problems and solve problems here proposed. Problems and solutions will be credited to their authors. Each solution, or proposed problem, sent to the Editor should have the author's name introducing the problem or solution as on the following pages. The Editor of the department desires to serve its readers by making it interesting and helpful to them. If you have any suggestion to make, mail it to him. Address all communications to J. A. Ñyberg, 1039 E. Marquette Road, Chicago. SOLUTION OF PROBLEMS. 751. Proposed by Elmer Schuyler, Bay Ridge H. S., Brooklyn, N. Y. Find the value of sin [2costan (3cot-1x)} =3 2sinc cosc = 2b √(1 − b2) Solution by Morris Monsky, student, Columbia College. Let cot-1 x = a. Then tan 3a = (3x2-1)/(x3-3x). Let tan3a= b; cos-1b = c. Then sin2c = 2(3x2 − 1 ) ( x6-15x+15x2+1)1/2/(x3-3x)2. Also solved by T. P. Bugdanoff, Manchuria, China; Michael Goldberg, Philadelphia, Pa.; N. L. Roray, Metuchen, N. J. = 752. Proposed by Walter R. Warne, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y. The sum of n terms in two Arithmetic Progressions are respectively n(n+1) and 1⁄2n(1⁄2n-1). Determine if they have a common term. Solution by Nelson L. Roray, Metuchen, N. J. The first A. P. is evidently 2, 4, 6, 8. and its nth term is 2n. The second A. P. is -1/4, 1/4, 3/4, 5/4, and its nth term is n/2-3/4 or (2n-3)/4 which is a fraction for all integral values of n. Hence each term of the first is an even integer, and each term of the second is a fraction. Therefore, there can be no common term. Also solved by Thomas E. N. Eaton, Redlands, Cal.; Michael Goldberg, Morris Monsky. The two A. P. can be found in various ways. T. E. N. Eaton found them by comparing the sum n(a+1)/2, with n(n+1), the given sum. Michael Goldberg found them as follows: Substituting various values of n in n(n+1) we get the series 0, 2, 6, 12, 20, 30, and the first differences 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 must be the A. P. of the problem. Similarly, 1/2n(1/2n-1) gives the series 0, − 1/4, 0, 3/4, 2, 15/4, and its first differences form the second A. P. 753. Proposed by G. H. Crandall, Culver Military Academy, Culver, Ind. Given two points, A and B, on the same side of a plane, and at distances a and b from the plane. The distance between the projection of A and B on the plane is d. Find the locus of a point P on the plane such that the lines PA and PB are equally inclined to the plane. of t and olution by Thomas E. N. Eaton, Redlands, Cal. |