The feeling that the exploration for new reserves should be accelerated is shared generally by most well informed oil men to-day. The subject of the decline in crude-oil discoveries is of particular importance to the geologist, who represents the backbone of the finding branch of the American petroleum industry. Upon his shoulders rests a major portion of the responsibility of maintaining ample crude-oil reserves with which to supply the necessary war requirements and essential civilian needs. The importance of the independent producer and the oil promoter in the finding effort of the industry can not be over-emphasized and everything possible should be done to encourage their continued operation and success.

Viewed over a substantial period of time, it appears that the declining discovery rate has been influenced more by other factors than by material shortage, manpower shortage, and crude price. In the immediate present, however, it is obvious that each of these three factors is seriously influencing the rate of discovery. The removal of these factors as retarding influences is perhaps the problem of others than the geologist, and it is hoped that to the extent necessary they will be corrected.

The relationship between the discovery rate in the Mid-Continent-Rocky Mountain-Gulf Coast region and the effect of the opening of new geological or prospective provinces within this area demonstrates the importance that new prospecting territories have played in maintaining the discovery rate. A study of the relationship between discovery rate and exploration methods indicates the importance which each new finding tool has played in maintaining finding rates. The influence of these two factors on the discovery rate within the area under discussion over the past 3-7 years has been profound and doubtless has been of major consequence in the declining rate of discovery in the entire United States.

Geologists and geophysicists should recognize their responsibility of extending the search for oil into new provinces which heretofore have received little, if any, attention. They should also accept the responsibility of providing new finding tools and of improving present exploratory methods.