The Kettleman Hills oil field is one of California's largest oil fields and will be numbered among the major oil-producing areas of the world. It is in Fresno and Kings counties, California, along the western foothills of the San Joaquin Valley, approximately 180 miles southeast of San Francisco.

The Kettleman Hills constitute a topographic feature more than 30 miles in length. Structurally they are composed of two well defined elongate domes, the North and Middle domes, and the northwestern end of what may be a third dome, frequently spoken of as the South dome. The North dome, the largest of the three, may be expected to be productive in an area of 15,000 or 20,000 acres. Oil and gas are produced prolifically from the Temblor formation of Lower Miocene age, which in the North dome is more than 1,500 feet in thickness. The writers discuss briefly the stratigraphy, structure, and mode of occurrence of oil and gas in this field.