The north boundary of the Palo Duro basin in the Texas Panhandle is the buried Amarillo-Wichita Mountains. Southern limits lie along the crest of the Matador archipelago. Western limits in New Mexico are less clearly defined or understood. The eastern portion of this basin in Oklahoma has been variously called the "Hollis, Hardeman or eastern Palo Duro basin". The areal extent of this basin in the Texas Panhandle approximates 17,000 square miles and includes parts or all of twenty counties.

Pennsylvanian rocks rest unconformably on Mississippian sediments in the southern two-thirds of the area and on granite in the northern one-third and over the Matador peaks. The Mississippian is divided into the Chester, Meramec, Spergen-Warsaw and Osage series. This system varies from a wedge edge to a 1000 feet in thickness. Mississippian rocks rest unconformably on the basement in the central portion of the basin and unconformably on the Ellenburger dolomite in the eastern one-third and the southwest one-quarter. This is evidence to support the premise that there existed a pre-Mississippian post-Ellenburger erosional period that removed much of the Ellenburger and younger pre-Mississippian rocks from the Palo Duro basin. The age of this unconformity is unknown positively but thought to be Devonian in age.

The Ellenberger system varies from a few feet to 1000 feet in thickness and consists principally of dolomite except for the basal sand.

From structural studies of the basement, Ellenburger and Mississippian, the present attitude of these erosional surfaces occurred at the same geological time as the Amarillo-Wichita Mountains and the Matador complex.

Detailed structural, stratigraphic and historical geological studies of this area could by drilling, prove the existence of stratigraphic, structural and combination stratigraphic-structural traps in the porous portions of rock systems from Permian to basement.

This area in the Texas Panhandle has been poorly prospected and offers quite a challenge to the domestic oil industry and to imaginative subsurface geology and modern exploration techniques.

JOHN B. BEST, JR.

Mr. Best graduated from the University of Oklahoma in August, 1950 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and immediately entered the U. S. Army and served there until August, 1952. He left the service with the rank of Captain. September 1, 1952 Mr. Best moved to Amarillo, Texas and began working with the geological department of Phillips Petroleum Company. In June, 1954 he joined Amarillo Oil Company and is presently employed as Chief Geologist. Mr. Best is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Panhandle Geological Society.

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