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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 51 (1967)

Issue: 3. (March)

First Page: 472

Last Page: 472

Title: Asphalt Jungle Today: ABSTRACT

Author(s): John E. Kilkenny

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

The small but prolific Los Angeles basin in the state of California has experienced a resurgence of exploration activity during the past decade. Most of the onshore activity has been concentrated in a part of the basin popularly called the "Asphalt Jungle" which includes approximately 100 square miles in the urban area of the city of Los Angeles west of the Civic Center.

From 1890 to 1912, when this area was largely open country, there was active wildcatting and several important oil fields were found. Westward expansion of the city's residential section prevented further exploration for many years. Triggered by the deep-zone discovery in the Beverly Hills field in 1954, town-lot lease blocks were assembled, and Los Angeles city drilling restrictions were modified to permit daylight corehole drilling and high-angle directional development drilling from sound-proofed derricks. The result has been the development of 30,000 BOPD new production, with estimated oil reserves of 170 million barrels and 300 billion cubic feet of gas reserves from eight new oil fields. At present Las Cienegas is the largest field with a production of 15,000 BOPD, although a mo e recent discovery on the west may equal or surpass it.

The surface of the "Asphalt Jungle" consists of flat-lying late Pleistocene and Recent alluvial deposits which conceal sharp, asymmetrically folded, faulted, generally west-east-trending anticlines in the Pliocene, late Miocene, and older rocks. The main producing zones are in the upper Miocene alternating sandstone and shale section with a maximum net pay thickness in excess of 800 feet. Producing depths range from 2,000 to 10,000 feet, and gravity of the oil from 20° to 40°.

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Copyright 1997 American Association of Petroleum Geologists