This report covers a part of the Gulf Coastal Province located in North Louisiana and Arkansas, and the Paleozoic area of northwestern Arkansas. The district includes 26 parishes of North Louisiana and all of Arkansas.

There was a decrease in drilling activity in 1960 as compared with the previous year. In North Louisiana, the decrease in the number of wells drilled was due to the lack of development drilling. Exploration activity increased slightly over 1959. Arkansas showed a marked decrease in both development and exploration drilling activity.

Twenty-one new fields were discovered in North Louisiana and 5 new fields were discovered in Arkansas. As in the past, sandstones of the Wilcox formation accounted for the largest number of new-field discoveries in North Louisiana. Four of the new-field discoveries in Arkansas were in sandstones of the Atoka formation of Pennsylvanian age.

The most important exploration activity in Arkansas was in search of gas in the Arkoma basin in the northwestern part of the state. Exploratory drilling was dominant in the Wilcox and Tuscaloosa areas in the eastern part of North Louisiana and in the western part searching for Paluxy pools. Interest was again shown in the Hosston and Cotton Valley of Jackson, Lincoln, and Ouachita parishes.

Exploration activity will probably remain about the same during 1961 as was present in 1960. Arkansas' activity will be centered in the Arkoma basin while activity in North Louisiana will again be centered in the Wilcox, Tuscaloosa, Hosston, and Cotton Valley sandstone-trend areas.