"Do you have such an objective in your own backyard?"

Since the "energy crunch" of the past few years, the incentive for domestic oil has led to exploitation of the Austin Chalk reserves. These areas have long been known, poorly understood, and sporadically utilized.

Exploration, completion, logging, and production techniques for these type reservoirs have been neglected, ignored, and "bad-mouthed" by the oil fraternity in general. Preference has been given to the mechanical log porosity types found high on structure in closure areas. While recognition of the fact that some of the earliest long-lived production (since 1870) has been from synclinal regional structure, the presence of shale or brittle limestone as reservoir rock types has been ignored.

Many young geologists and engineers are not cognizant of the possibility that commercial oil may exist in such traps or that they are worth exploring for. The rocks themselves must be examined for clues to their existence and this is considered old-fashioned and out of date by many.

Three major geologic controls and many man-induced techniques influence successful exploration for Austin Chalk and similar type oil accumulations. These geologic controls include (1) stratigraphic interplay of diverse facies types, (2) source-bed existence and maturation, and (3) tectonism for both maturation and fracture permeability development in potential reservoir rocks. All three of these geologic factors are interrelated and at times almost inseparable in importance.

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