Pennsylvania's Contribution to Petroleum Geology

DICKEY, PARKE A., Consultant, Owasso, OK

The petroleum industry began on August 27, 1859, with the drilling of the Drake well at Titusville, Pennsylvania. The well was located on an oil seep. Since then, most of the great oil provinces of the world have been located on or downdip from seeps. The next prospecting method was to note the orientation of productive trends, still universally used. The anticlinal theory was proposed in 1861, but none of the great Pennsylvania oil fields is on anticlines, so their importance was not generally recognized in the industry until the discovery of Cushing, Oklahoma, in 1912.

John F. Carll, the oil geologist of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey between 1874 and 1888, introduced the techniques of logging samples, correlating strip logs, and drawing structure contours. He recognized that the oil came from porous sands, probably laid down nearshore. He recognized that gas was dissolved in the oil and understood water drive.

In the 1920s, and 1930s, researchers at Penn State and at Gulf in Pittsburgh took cores, defined porosity, permeability, and relative permeability, and laid the foundations of reservoir behavior. The University of Pittsburgh started the first oil and gas curriculum in 1912.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91004 © 1991 AAPG Annual Convention Dallas, Texas, April 7-10, 1991 (2009)