Abstract

In 1915 and 1917 the Survey published its Bulletin 19, a review of subsurface geology of the State. In 1930 this volume was superseded by Bulletin 40, a 3-volume work on oil and gas in Oklahoma. The influence of this huge undertaking can not now be assessed, but it must have been great.

Since 1935, when the Survey was reactivated, the ability of the Survey to help in the search for oil and gas has necessarily taken new directions. The industry now has more than two thousand geologists working in the State, the Survey has but seven. Survey work of aid to the industry must be in special areas of research and in mapping projects. Publications of the last twenty years include county reports accompanied by geologic maps on Cimarron, Washington, Tulsa, Ottawa, Muskogee, Haskell, Le Flore, Seminole, Creek, Okfuskee, Grady, McCurtain, Pawnee, Harper, and Hughes Counties. Mapping is completed on Craig, Mayes, Nobles, Rogers, Wagoner, Osage, Okmulgee, McIntosh, Lincoln, and Payne Counties. A report on Blaine County is in press. Many of these reports are accompanied by subsurface cross sections or by chapters on oil and gas geology.

Geologic reports and maps on smaller areas than counties cover much of the State. Such reports have been issued for northeastern Cherokee County, northeastern Osage County, and parts of Kiowa, Pushmataha, Beckham, Latimer, and Pittsburg Counties. Mapping is well along on Woods, Woodward, and Ellis Counties. All of these maps help in the search for oil and gas.

Dr. Louis Jordan's book on subsurface stratigraphic units is the best of its kind and is a required item in each oil geologist's office. The set of five index maps to geologic mapping (subsurface and surface) provides an easy and a rapid means of finding existing maps. Survey work, much of it done by Dr. Jordan, has been of assistance in development of subsurface LPG storage.

Oklahoma Geology Notes has carried many articles and maps of importance in the search for hydrocarbons. These have been written by Jordan, Chenoweth, Bado, Branan, Backo, Reeves, and others. A geologic map of pre-Pennsylvanian units, by Dr. Jordan, is in press. She has begun a similar map of units at the base of the Woodford. The basement-rock maps, one of southern Oklahoma, by Ham, Merritt, and Denison; the other, of northern Oklahoma, by Ham, Jordan, and Bellis, are well along. All of these contributions are of direct and indirect importance to oil finders.

When you consider that the Survey each year also answers thousands of inquiries, examines hundreds of submitted samples, investigates gypsum, limestone, asphaltite, borates, rock salt, glass sand, clays, igneous rocks and fossils, the total bulks large and the part played in oil and gas search is amazing. The State has a tremendous bargain from its small annual investment in Oklahoma Geological Survey.