Age of the Oil in Southern Oklahoma Fields

Abstract

Introduction Since the opening of the Wheeler oil and gas field in Carter County and thediscovery of oil near Lawton, Comanche County, Okla., in 1904, interest hasbeen aroused regarding the origin of the oil in the Permian ?Red Bed? regionwhich lies between the Wichita and Arbuckle Mountains on the north and the RedRiver on the south. The later development of the Healdton, Loco, Duncan, Fox, and Graham fields south and west of the Arbuckle Mountains has brought theregion into prominence, Recent discoveries of Ordovician and of Pennsylvanianfossils in wells in the Healdton field and of Pennsylvanian fossils in the Foxand Graham fields are of such importance from a scientific and a commercialstandpoint that the occurrences and the problems arising therefrom are herebriefly described. Producing oil and gas sands in the southern Oklahoma fields, with the exceptionof those in the Cretaceous and underlying rocks in the vicinity of Madill, Marshall County, are associated with the Permian ?Red Beds? or with theunderlying Paleozoic strata. In the two fields farthest south of the ArbuckleMountains, Healdton and Loco, production has been entirely confined to sands atdepths of 700 to 1400 ft. (213 to 416 m.) and only recently has a producingsand as deep as 1860 ft. (567 m.) been encountered. These sands are found nearand below the base of the red rocks and were supposed by Wegemann and Heald tobelong in large part to the basal Permian, Wichita formation, or to theimmediately underlying formations. Fossils in the blue shales and in thelimestones associated with the deeper sands now prove them to be Pennsylvanianand all the producing sands at Healdton are found to be of this age. AIME 059–51