--> ABSTRACT: Exploration Potential in Sale 95: Central and Southern California Offshore, by James K. Crouch, Steven B. Bachman, and Grant S. Lichtman; #91022 (1989)

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Exploration Potential in Sale 95: Central and Southern California Offshore

James K. Crouch, Steven B. Bachman, Grant S. Lichtman

OCS lease sale 95, off southern California, is currently scheduled for January 1990. The sale 95 area includes proposed tracts in the offshore Santa Maria basin. The Santa Barbara Channel, and the California continental borderland. Although portions of the sale 95 area are reaching a mature exploration stage, there remain three nearshore areas that are highly prospective and as yet untested or only sparsely tested by drilling. These include the northern offshore Santa Maria basin, the San Pedro basin and adjacent Point Dume-Santa Monica shelf, and the offshore area extending between Palos Verdes and Oceanside.

Structures in all three areas are on trend with highly productive onshore and/or offshore producing trends. Tracts in the northern Santa Maria basin include structures underlain by the Monterey Formation that are on strike with the recently discovered Point Arguello, Point Pedernales, Point Sal, and San Miguel offshore fields. Similarly, sale 95 tracts in the Point Dume-Santa Monica shelf areas lie along the Santa Monica fault zone and its associated onshore producing fields in the northern Los Angeles basin. Tracts along the shelf and slope between Palos Verdes and Oceanside are close to and directly on trend with the Newport-Inglewood and Palos Verdes fault zones and associated fields such as Wilmington, Huntington Beach, and Newport. Recently collected seismic reflection data of th se three prospective areas provides improved structural and stratigraphic definition of both local and regional relations.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91022©1989 AAPG Annual Convention, April 23-26, 1989, San Antonio, Texas.