Exploration activity within the Appalachian basin has shown a marked upswing within the past year. Current massive lease acquisition programs and saturation seismic activity have far exceeded past cyclic pulsations of exploratory activity.

Proximity to eastern gas and oil markets and higher gas prices are important factors, but cooperation of major gas and pipeline companies with major oil companies and large independent producers, and the recognition by these operators that the Appalachian basin is a vast, untested, geologic frontier with "major company" reserves to be probed for and developed, have added appreciably to the present exploration momentum.

The principal areas to be prospected with geophysical methods and the drill are:

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1. The southern tier of counties across New York and the northern tier of counties in Pennsylvania. Principal prospective zones are Middle Devonian (Onondaga) and Silurian reefs and Silurian (Tuscarora) sandstones at medium depths.

2. A four-county area in east-central New York, southeast of Syracuse, where Ordovician Oswego and Juniata clastics and Silurian Herkimer sandstones wedge out updip toward the north and east.

3. A 2-15 mi wide subcrop belt of Rose Run Sandstone (Ordovician) that trends in an arcuate pattern across east-central and northeastern Ohio, northwestern Pennsylvania, and western New York.

4. The northeast-trending "Rome trough" fault system of eastern Kentucky and southwestern West Virginia. Thick Cambrian clastic sections are the principal targets. Extensions of this major structural feature southwestward across Kentucky and northwestward across West Virginia to Pennsylvania are being pursued by seismic means.

5. Anticlinal trends in central and eastern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. Here fractured reservoirs will be sought along prominent structural features, especially in the Tuscarora Sandstone and the Onondaga-Oriskany sections.

6. Shallow Medina-Clinton (Silurian) areas of eastern Ohio, northwestern Pennsylvania, and western New York.

7. The entire southwest-trending Valley and Ridge province from central Pennsylvania to northeastern Alabama. This area is compared structurally with the prolific gas-producing foothills belt of Alberta, Canada. There are multiple objectives in Cambro-Ordovician rocks and a possible linear extent of potential gas fields along this trend. Also the Beekmantown-Cooper Ridge section, fractured or dolomitized Trenton carbonates may be found productive.

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