In the past 3 years exploratory wells drilled on the floor of the San Joaquin Valley near Bakersfield have penetrated the basement complex of pre-Cretaceous crystalline rocks at depths ranging from 9,280 to 13,970 feet. These wells have encountered a succession of Oligocene and Eocene marine sands and shales lying between the previously well known Miocene marine beds and the basement. A basal non-marine member of uncertain age lies below the marine Eocene and directly upon the basement.

The discovery of this succession of rocks is of considerable scientific and economic interest because no such rocks are present in the coutcrops 15-20 miles east of the wells. There, marine Miocene beds with a basal non-marine member rest directly on the basement complex. Marine Oligocene beds are absent in the outcrops everywhere along the east side of the San Joaquin Valley. Marine Eocene beds are absent for a distance of 140 miles along the east side of the valley from the vicinity of Pastoria Creek at the south end and northward to the San Joaquin River over 100 miles north of Bakersfield. Commercial quantities of oil or gas have not as yet been found in the pre-Miocene rocks in the Bakersfield area.

End_of_Article - Last_Page 947------------