Most of the easy-to-find accumulations of petroleum in this country have been found. As a result our domestic exploratory successes during the past decade have been declining not only in numbers of fields found annually, but also in quality or economic worth.

This has come about because the petroleum industry is still confining most of its exploratory efforts to the search for the obvious types of traps which it knows are becoming more scarce and thus harder to find.

Geologists have made relatively little effort to search purposefully for the obscure traps--stratigraphic or paleogeomorphic--because of (1) a motivation to continue looking for structures which can be found with present-day tools and ideas, and (2) the pressure exerted on explorationists by their knowledge that anticlines, domes, and fault structures are more acceptable and saleable to management.

Hidden trends may occur below unconformities, at undrilled depths in productive trends, and in relatively unexplored regions. Hidden features may be ancestral anticlines and domes, faults, stratigraphic traps, and buried geomorphic features. The differences between these hidden and the obvious type features is that the former are not obvious to present-day exploratory methods and thinking. Many of these probably can now be found, but only if we point our methods and thinking toward them, not around them.

The large domestic reserves required for the future are contained in hidden trends and features. If we are to succeed in finding them, geologists and management will have to place greater emphasis on the search for the obscure trap. In this search, the geologist will be required to emphasize greater study and research on stratigraphy, paleogeomorphology, paleogeography, and paleostructure. Management, on the other hand, will have to be reoriented in its exploration thinking and policies so that the geologist will be encouraged to look for the obscure as well as the obvious trap; also the explorationist must be assured by management that to search for the subtle trap will be welcomed instead of discouraged.

The Gulf Coastal Province contains many geological environments which offer possibilities for production from subtle or hidden traps--among these are (1) sand pinchouts in the lagoonal environment of the Frio (Oligocene) of South Texas, (2) buried structures and sand buildups in the Hackberry embayment (Oligocene) of southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, (3) possibilities for localized favorable sand distribution patterns in the downdip Wilcox (Eocene) in an area extending from Mexico to Alabama, (4) buried, undiscovered accumulations of petroleum in ancient traps around salt domes which were formed when the domes were shaped or positioned differently than at the present time, and (5) in the entire Gulf Coastal Province where there is no doubt that paleogeomorphological features ex st.

The time has come when domestic explorationists must make a turn in the direction of purposefully looking for the obscure trap. Since the start in that direction necessarily must begin through management, who must be convinced that the search for the subtle hidden trap is necessary to the future welfare of the industry and the national economy, it is up to the geologist and geophysicist to sell management on the idea of directing a sizeable portion of the exploration effort toward the less obvious traps. If management exploratory policies can be oriented in this direction, the industry will be rewarded with a new era of successful exploration.

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