Thirty years ago, the oil industry knew all there was to know about the Smackover in southern Arkansas. All production from that formation came from large anticlines that were found by seismograph--then came Walker Creek!

Now, stratigraphic traps at 11,000 ft, oolite bars trending across low relief structural noses, and porosity pinchouts bring a new frontier for the wildcatter. Leave your old ideas and your old tools behind if you join this search. Gravity and shooting are not much help. The "in" combination is an imaginative subsurface geologist working with an operator who is interested in trend plays.

When you are tracing the pattern of offshore bars along an ancestral Gulf of Mexico shoreline, it is a big country. Wherever oolites are formed, beach or bar deposits can be present, and these are the ingredients for lucrative but elusive oil fields.

How many "Walker Creeks" will be found from Mexico to Florida? That is an interesting challenge facing the industry today.

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