Exploratory drilling in the rapidly developing Little Beaver field area of Adams and Washington counties, Colorado, has given rise to oil discoveries at Badger Creek, East Mountain View, and West Woodrow. These field discoveries and others northeast and northwest have revived interest in largely stratigraphically trapped oil in winnowed sandstone reservoirs of the Graneros and Dakota group south of the South Platte River. Previous discoveries in the general area at Middlemist and Lee fields had not held promise of large reservoirs in this part of the Denver basin where structural closure, as determined by the seismograph, is close to the limits of error inherent in this method of prospecting, and where indicated structures are small.

Cross sections, structural contour maps, and isopachous maps indicate stratigraphic-structural relationships conducive to commercial accumulation of gas and oil. However, the presence of numerous alternating shallow marine and continental environments of sedimentation makes mapping of the extension of existing fields difficult and the mapping of wildcat prospects a technique yet to be perfected.

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