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PETROLEUM POTENTIAL of WILDERNESS LANDS, CALIFORNIA by Edward W. Scott Z

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PETROLEUM POTENTIAL of WILDERNESS LANDS, CALIFORNIA by Edward W. Scott Z 38121-E4-PP-01M UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PETROLEUM POTENTIAL OF WILDERNESS LANDS, CALIFORNIA By Edward W. Scott (f) (} 0 -1 -1 .,I m -1 :::0 0 r mc .,3: 0 -i mz -i S> r 0 "TJ MISCELLANEOUS INVESTIGATIONS SERIES Published by the U.S. Geological Survey, 1983 Petroleum Potential of Wilderness Lands in California By Edward W. Scott PETROLEUM POTENTIAL OF WILDERNE$S LANDS iN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CIRCULAR 902-D This chapter on the petroleum geology and resource potential of Wilderness Lands in California is also provided as an accompanying pamphlet for Miscellaneou$ lnves­ tiga tions Series Map 1-1538 CONTENTS Page Abstract---------------------------------------------------------------------- D1 Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------- Regional geologic history -------------------------------------------------------- 1 California provinces-summary of geology ------------------------------------------ 2 Province 74-San Joaquin Basin----------------------------------------------- 4 Province 76-Ventura Basin--------------------------------------------------- 4 Province 77 -Santa Maria Basin ----------------------------------------------- 4 Province 78-Central Coastal Basins-------~------------------------------------ 4 Province 81A-Eastern California---------------------------------------------- 5 Cascade-Modoc subprovince ------------------------------------------------ 5 SierraNevadasubprovince------------------------------------------------- 5 Mono-lnyosubprovince---------------------------------------------------- 5 Great Basin and Mojave Desert subprovinces --------------------------------- 5 Transverse Rangessubprovince-------------------------------------------- 5 Imperial Valley subbasin ----------------------------------------------- 7 Peninsular Range subprovince---------------------------------------------- 7 Province 901-Santa Lucia Range---------------------------------------------- 7 Province 902-Northern Coast Ranges ------------------------------------------ 7 Qualitative evaluation of wilderness clusters---------------------------------------- 7 Summary------------------------------------------------------------------ 12 Selected references ------------------------------------------------------------- 12 ILLUSTRATIONS Page FIGURE 1. Index map of California showing the USGS petroleum provinces as used by Dolton and others (1981) ---------- D3 2. Index map of California showing the geomorphic divisions of the Eastern California province (81A) ----------- 6 3. Index map of California showing the USGS petroleum provinces and the 16 clusters of Wilderness Lands with petroleum potential assessed in the State ------------------------------------------------------- 8 4. Index map of California showing all the Wilderness Lands included in the analysis for petroleum resources ---- 9 III PETROLEUM POTENTIAL OF WILDERNESS LANDS IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES Petroleum Potential of Wilderness Lands in California By Edward W. Scott ABSTRACT The predominant trap types for the significant oil and gas fields in California are anticlines or California Wilderness Lands having oil and gas potential of faulted anticlines that produce primarily from Ter­ varying degrees were grouped into 16 clusters, covering 11.596 million acres. Their potentials range from a medium potential tiary sandstone reservoirs. There are a few in a few small tracts in producing basins to very low potentials sandstone reservoirs in fields producing from the in terranes of mixed sedimentary and igneous and volcanic Cretaceous in the Sacramento Valley and some rocks in the eastern and northern parts of the State. All tracts small fields producing from the Jurassic. outside of these clusters, 7.253 million acres of Wilderness Nearly 19 million acres of Wilderness Lands are Lands making up the total 18.849 million acres in the State, are assessed as having zero petroleum potential and are lo­ in the State of California; these lands were cated primarily in igneous and volcanic terranes in the east and evaluated in this study and lie within 511 separate central portions of the State. wilderness polygons ranging in size from 4 acres to 700,000 acres. However, the majority of the INTRODUCTION Wilderness Lands fall outside of the known petro­ leum producing basins and occur most frequently California currently ranks fifth overall as a in the igneous- metamorphic complexes of the source of conventional petroleum in the United northern and east-southeastern parts of the State. States. Through 1979 approximately 24 billion A brief description of the regional geology and barrels of recoverable oil and 33 trillion cubic feet geologic history for the entire State of California of natural gas had been discovered. Nearly all of is followed by a more detailed description of the the known recoverable oil and natural gas is in geology and petroleum potential of the Wilderness fields of significant sizes. Nearly 99 percent of the Lands within the State. oil and 96 percent of the natural gas occur in 155 fields. Fifteen giant fields have 63.4 percent of the REGIONAL GEOLOGIC HISTORY oil and 52.6 percent of the natural gas (Nehring, 1981). California was part of a large geosyncline dur­ All of the oil and gas fields discovered to date ing most of the Paleozoic. This was initiated when are in sedimentary basins either in the Great Val­ an early Paleozoic sea advanced from the Pacific ley or occupying re-entrants into the Pacific bor­ area eastward to the midcontinent. Mountain der provinces. Most of the rest of the State is un­ building in California started in the Late Triassic­ derlain by igneous rocks, both lava and intrusive Middle Jurassic part of the Mesozoic and culmi­ types; metamorphosed sedimentary rock; or nated at the close of the Jurassic with the Neva­ metavolcanics (Landes, 1970). dan orogeny. D1 The mountain-building processes continued into of the California provinces. On the west side of Late Cretaceous and included folding, faulting, the San Joaquin Valley, faulting and folding have and uplift, plus granitic intrusions and volcanic ac­ developed structures both parallel and subparallel tivity. The tectonic events during the Mesozoic re­ with the trace of the San Andreas, and similar sulted in the dominant relief of California of a features are present in the Coast Ranges to the parallel system of north-northwest trending moun­ east of the San Andreas fault. tain ranges with a long narrow valley between the In early Tertiary time, coastal movements ranges. This feature, the Great Valley of Califor­ started in the Coast Ranges. There was volcanic nia, was a basin of deposition and received activity in the Coast Ranges during the middle miogeosynclinal, clastic sediments during the Miocene followed by uplift and folding. The Coast period from Late Jurassic until early Pleistocene. Range orogeny culminated in late Pliocene into The eastern mountain system includes the Pleistocene time. Klamath, Sierra Nevada, and Peninsular Ranges. Emphasis has been placed on mountain building The western mountain system is the Coast in the discussion on California. The State is quite Ranges, with San Francisco Bay. separating the mountainous and the mountains and some major North and South Ranges. valleys form the basis for the designation of the During the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous tec­ various major geomorphic provinces that contain tonic activities, . a heterogeneous section of subprovinces or petroleum provinces that were as­ eugeosynclinal sediments and volcanics was being sessed for petroleum resources by the U.S. deposited in a trench at the base of the continental Geological Survey (Dolton and others, 1981). slope to the west of the present Coast Ranges. Nine provinces, from Dolton and others (1981), This is the Franciscan assemblage of California assessed for potential petroleum resources are and the source of the sediments was the growing 73-Sacramento Basin; 74-San Joaquin Basin; Sierra Nevada and Klamath Mountains. 7&--Los Angeles Basin; 76-Ventura Basin; 77- At the time of Franciscan deposition, another Santa Maria Basin; 78-Central Coastal Basins; major sedimentary sequenc~ was being deposited 79--Sonoma-Livermore Basin; 80--Humboldt in shallow seas on the shelf-slope. This is the Basin; and 81A-Eastern California. For the pro­ Great Valley sequence which consists of about gram of assessing petroleum potentials of the Wil­ 50,000 ft (15,240 m) of sandstones, shales, and derness Lands, two additional provinces have conglomerates that were deposited under been added, 901-the Santa Lucia Range, and miogeosynclinal conditions and are present under 902-the Northern Coast Ranges. the Great Valley of central California. Much of Brief discussions on the geology of the pro­ this section is exposed along the west side of the vinces that contain Wilderness Lands will follow, Sacramento Valley, the northern subbasin of the and the provinces will be treated in numerical Great Valley. order. Four petroleum provinces will not be dis­ A subduction zone developed under the Great cussed in this report because there are no Wilder­ Valley in mid-Jurassic time, and the Great Valley ness Lands within these provinces. They are 73- Series of rocks on the continental block was thrust Sacramento Basin; 75-Los Angeles Basin; 79- many miles westward over the Franciscan oceanic Sonoma-Livermore Basin; and 80--Humboldt plate rocks. This subduction and thrusting con­ Basin. tinued until mid-Oligocene
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