Part 6: Historic Oil Wells of the Little Spokane River Valley

(all rights to this material retained by author)

A Review of the Historic Oil Wells

of the Little Spokane River Valley

&

Regions Around

(part 6)

by

Wally Lee Parker

 

 

December 27, 1900
from the Spokesman-Review

 

… collecting the gas is very simple …

 

            If any one incident may have foretold the impending oil boom of 1901, it was likely the arrival in eastern Washington of Professor Samuel Aughey.  A prospectus published by the Spokane Natural Gas, Oil and Coal Company in 1901 outlines at least one version of the Professor’s history.

            “For the benefit of those who do not know Professor Aughey, the author of the following report, it may be well to say that he is an educator and worker in the field of applied science.  He was a professor of Natural Science in the University of Nebraska for twelve years.  Latterly he has been engaged in the same line of work in the south.  He made the first geological survey of the oil belt of Wyoming.  He is also the author of numerous works on geology and related sciences.  The honorary degree of Ph. D. has been conferred on him five times, and that of L. L. D. twice. But he does not attach these titles to his name.  This is but a glimpse of work in which he has been engaged.”

            Printed accounts suggest that Professor Aughey is one of those singular, larger than life characters from the 19^th century; a renaissance man of sorts in his younger days, whose reputation tarnished as he aged.  What we know of this lost luster seems to suggest that controversy followed the professor’s every step in his later years.

            In 1893 Professor Aughey’s son-in-law, Elton Fulmer, arrived in Pullman, a small town in southeastern Washington, to take a position at the state college as a professor of chemistry, geology, and metallurgy.  Professor Fulmer was accompanied by his wife, Helen Barbara Aughey Fulmer — the sole surviving of Professor Aughey’s three children.

            As for Professor Aughey’s arrival in the state a few years later, below is the Reverend W. G. M. Hayes’ recollection as posted in the February 23, 1912 issue of the Pullman Herald.

            “That he might be nearer his only daughter, Mrs. Fulmer, and his grandchildren, residing in Pullman, he removed to Eastern Washington in 1899, locating in Spokane.  I remember him well at that time.  He was then some 68 years old and my mental comment at the time was that he came here to retire from life’s activities and spend his declining years in quietude.  But we were soon to learn that he viewed the matter differently; that he was, in fact, entering upon a new scene of activity.”

             On July 7^th, 1899, the Spokane Chronicle announced the arrival of another instrumental character in area’s first oil boom.

            “R. T. Dabney, president of the Aberdeen Land Company, who has large property interest on the coast, has recently moved here with his family and is occupying a handsome new residence which he has just completed in West Grove addition.  Mr. Dabney has been in the real estate business for many years, and has had his eye on Spokane, which he says is now the most promising city in the west.  To show his confidence in the city, he has purchased from the Holland bank the tract of land just across Latah Creek, known as West Grove addition.”

            On September 19^th, 1900, the Ravalli County Democrat of Hamilton, Montana, under the headline “Miscellaneous News Items,” announced that “A discovery of natural gas is reported in swampy ground on the farm of Henry Jones, in the “Hole in the Ground,” a deep depression near the head of Rock Lake, between Rosalia and Sprague.”  Doubtless that news had already spread throughout Spokane’s business community.  And it would be reasonable to assume that both Mister Dabney and Professor Aughey — always being mindful of speculative opportunities — had taken notice.

            How long it took to move on the opportunity is outlined in an extensive article appearing in the November 26^th, 1900, issue of the Spokane Chronicle.  With a first line stating “the gas and oil prospects within 35 miles of Spokane are assuming considerable importance, and it will soon be definitely known concerning their value,” the article went on to outline a trip made the prior Thursday by three Spokane men — the above noted R. T. Dabney, one Mr. O. B. Hollis, and one Mr. W. H. Hunter.  It was implied that these men were principles in a new corporation formed specifically to exploit the find.  The article stated that the businessmen were accompanied to the area by an unidentified “special correspondent of the Chronicle.”  The tenor of the ‘scientific’ explanations and arguments used in the article suggest that the “special correspondent” was someone familiar with mining stock promotions — possibly Professor Samuel Aughey himself; a published writer not unfamiliar with the controversies inherent in oil and mining speculation.

            The article states, “The train reached Rosalia at noon and (our) party was soon speeding over the hills toward the gas fields.”

            The gas fields were later outlined in the oil company’s prospectus as the segment of Whitman County following Pine Creek and its tributaries from east to west some six linear miles to where Pine Creek flows into Rock Creek at Hole-in-the-Ground.

            On the road the party was first met by a Mr. Moreland, one of the local farmers.  Moreland reported discovering a “substance resembling axel grease oozing (from) the bank of a spring” above his home.  Unfortunately, after detouring to the spring, the Spokane men “found the spot had been so trampled by cattle in the last 24 hours as to obliterate all trace of the substance, whatever it was” — though the strong assumption, as outline in the article, was that it ‘was a seepage of crude petroleum.”

            Regarding Hole-in-the-Ground, the November 26^th article explained that Henry Jones homesteaded the site 1873.  Two years prior the first land claim at what was to become the city of Spokane Falls had been made — with the town being officially incorporated only ten years later in 1881.

            As for the discovery of gas, Jones explained to the Chronicle’s “special correspondent” that within a particular area of Rock Creek, as it runs through Hole-in-the-Ground, “bubbles were constantly rising from the water, varying in quantity with the rise and fall of the thermometer.”  And then the correspondent noted, “16 years after his arrival in the county he (Henry Jones) discovered one day by accident, dropping a match from his pipe, that they (the bubbles) could be lighted.  He also noted that in the spring, when the flats were covered with (snowmelt) water, that the bubbles issued not only from the creek but also boil(ed) up vigorously from all over the meadow …”

            The newspaper continued, “A year or two ago” Jones and his neighbor “found that by poking a stick into the earth, upon its withdrawal a jet of gas issued from the hole which could be lighted …”  Afterward it became a competition as to “whose farm would produce the highest and longest burn.”

            The gentlemen from Spokane collected samples of the gas from beneath the surface of the creek.  As the Chronicle explained, “The manner of collecting the gas is very simple.  The bottle is filled with water and inverted over a large funnel resting on the bottom of the pool in such a way that bubbles of gas arising through the funnel must enter the bottle.  The gas rises above the water (in the bottle), forcing it (the water) out of the mouth of the bottle so that when empty of water the bottle must be full of gas.  It is then corked and the cork covered with paraffin to make it airtight …”

            Referring to area’s not covered by water, the “special correspondent” continued, “We tried for gas in different parts of the ‘hole’ and almost invariably where there was enough moisture to admit of the rod’s being forced into the ground a good burn was the result, and in several places so quickly did it come up that both Mr. Dabney and Mr. Jones had the hair burned from the backs of their hand, and once Mr. Jones’ fine beard was threatened.”

            The article then went on to dispatch the normal assumption as to the nature of the phenomenon being observed.

            “In considering the possibilities and probabilities of the gas two questions present themselves:  First — what is the source of the gas?  Second — if from a permanent source, is it in paying quantities?

            “The second question, only the completion of the wells which the company will soon begin will answer.  The first we can do no more than guess at.

            “The theory is advanced by many that the product is marsh or swamp gas, generated by the decomposition of vegetable matter such as leaves, dead wood, etc., in stagnant water.  It is well to explain here a fact not generally understood, viz.,: that the chemical composition of the gas arising from the above cause and represented by the formula CH₄ is the same as that of the gas given off by deposits of oil and coal and commonly called by the miners ‘firedamp,’ and which when found is large quantities is used as an illuminant and a fuel.  Therefore the question of source can not be determined by a qualitative or quantitative chemical analysis.

            “However, the quantity of the gas, the fact that it has been known to rise winter and summer for years in places, the fact that it rises so strongly in the spring from the field when flooded, long before any decomposition could take place, and the fact that it is found in springs on un-wooded hillsides (apparently referring to the banks of Pine Creek and its tributaries, which were also tested) all point strongly to the conclusion that the gas does not come from decaying leaves or trees.  Again, the fact that it is found in places on the creek where there is a sandy or rocky bottom and is not found in paces outside of the belt above descried, where the dead leaves and rotting logs line the bottom, lead to the same conclusion.

            “Allow then that the gas in not of vegetable origin,” the Chronicle’s unnamed special correspondent continues.  “The two other sources which give rise to natural gas in quantity are subterranean deposits of rock salt and petroleum or coal.  The water in districts where gas arises from the former source is invariably strong, impregnated with the salts of sodium and potassium.  The fact that the water from Pine Creek leaves no residue when evaporated to dryness, and is as sweet to the taste as the water of a mountain spring, seems to eliminate rock salt as a formative element.

            “This then leaves coal and oil as a possible source of the gas, and from the fact that a strong outcropping of coal blossom is found southwest of Pine City and that a heavy film of oil is found on the water in a number of places it seems only reasonable to suppose that deposits of one or both of the substances underlie sections of this district.”

            On November 30^th another article, excerpted below, appeared in the Spokesman-Review.  It began, “Wednesday evening a … test of the natural gas … was made at 412 Riverside Avenue.  It was under the management of Messrs. Dabney, Hollis, and Hunter, the promoters of the gas field, and Mr. Gun of the local gas company.  The … test … consumed 20 gallons.  A large number of interested spectators called during the evening and several visitors from other sections addressed the crowd in relation to the importance of the find to Spokane should it prove as extensive as it is thought to be.  After the test, which was highly successful, Mr. Dabney spoke for a few minutes explaining how the gas was first discovered and his connection with the company since its formation.”

            Among to subsequent speakers was Mark A. Morriston — identified as being “from the California oil fields.”  Mr. Morriston is quoted as saying, “The indications are very similar to those surrounding the California oil fields.  In fact, you have better surface indications here than they have down there.  The large scope of county on which it is found in Whitman County is another point in favor of your section.  There is no doubt but what oil, gas, and coal exist in paying quintiles on Pine Creek and that Spokane has at her very door a natural resource that will eventually make her one of the most important cities of the west.”

            Mr. Dabney added, “The gas is escaping from the ground over a large area of country — three miles wide and 10 in length — and has been tested and proved of excellent quality for heating and lighting purposes.  As to its quantity, there is only one way to determine that, and that is by putting down some wells. … If in the development of these fields we should find either gas, oil or coal … it would do much toward building up Spokane and the adjacent country by bringing in manufactories.”

            Professor Aughey noted the following in his report on the “Pine Creek basin” as published in the Spokane Natural Gas, Oil, and Coal Company prospectus.  “Here it is important to note the kind of gas this is … Like others, when the news first reached me concerning this gas, the conclusion was reached that in all probability it was only marsh gas (CH₄).  It was, however, soon observed that it was more than mere marsh gas.  Marsh gas burns with a blue flame and gives out little heat.  But the Pine Creek gas burns with a yellowish blaze and gives out a great deal of heat and a white light.  Hence it cannot be marsh gas.  As already observed a considerable amount of this gas has been collected by various persons in bottles, jars and gas receivers, and burned with jets of gas being pressed upward in the usual way by water pressure.  I observed an experiment of this kind at Spokane of gas obtained from Henry Jones’ ranch in the hole in the ground.  Mr. Dabney and other gentlemen were present.  The gas was, as usual, burned with a beautiful yellowish flame, making a white light.  The blaze had a blue base, as all illuminating gas has, whether it is natural gas or manufactured from coal or petroleum.  The reason of this is that all natural or manufacture illuminating gas contains from thirty-five to forty percent of marsh gas.  Hence the blue color often at the base in the burning of all illuminating gas.  Subtracting the forty per cent of marsh gas or less from this natural gas, there are left sixty per cent of paraffin and other hydrocarbons, which constituted the essential ingredients of illuminating gas.  As therefor the Pine Creek gas does not disport itself like marsh gas, but does act like coal and petroleum gas, it must be the latter.”

            On that basis the company quickly set to selling stock.  Its prospectus stated, “Incorporated under the laws of the State of Washington.  Capital stock, $150,000; divided into 1,500,000 shares of the par value of ten cents per share.”

            One the 27^th of December, 1900, one of a series of ads for Spokane Natural Gas, Oil, and Coal Company stock was placed in the Spokesman-Review by the company’s broker, C. D. Rand.  “$100 Buys 1000 Shares,” the ad declared.  And then the print suggested, “Make your wife a New Year’s present of 1000 shares.  You can not give her anything that will be of more value in days to come.”  The ad also admonished, “We shall be pleased to furnish any information, but advise you to call early.  In a few days we do not expect to have any left at present prices.”

            Another of Rand’s ads, this placed in the Spokane Chronicle on the 21^st of January, 1901, advised, “The price of stock (has been) reduced to 2½ȼ per share.  All parties who purchased stock at 10ȼ per share will receive 4 shares for 1 by calling at my office or by writing and enclosing certificates.”  The reason for this change wasn’t noted.

 

… to be continued …

Part Five: Historic Oil Wells of the Little Spokane River Valley

(all rights to this material retained by author)

A Review of the Historic Oil Wells

of the Little Spokane River Valley

&

Regions Around

(part five)

by

Wally Lee Parker

 

… a sea of molten rock ...

            Over an eleven million year period — ending just six million years ago — an estimated forty-one thousand cubic miles of basalt flooded up from beneath the earth’s crust and then out and over sixty-three thousand square miles of what would eventually become the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.  If collected into a single mass, this molten basalt would form a sphere just under forty-three miles in diameter.  If that sphere were allowed to empty out across the surface of Eastern Washington — meaning just that portion of the state to the east of the crest of the Cascade Mountains — it would cover the land just a hair’s breadth more than a mile deep in basaltic rock.  Poured out in hundreds and hundreds of separate molten extrusions, this incomprehensible deluge of lava has managed to obscure vast stretches of the older lands beneath a sizable portion of the three above noted states — much to the benefit of early 20^th century oil speculators.

            But in all of this space, there is nothing rising significantly above the surface resembling a traditional volcano.

            One of the more insightful early scientific observations of the Pacific Northwest’s various outpours of molten rock occurred in 1879.  Scottish geologist Archibald Geikie (1835-1924) of the British Geological Survey had been invited by his North American scientific colleagues to tour the far western United States.  Writing in an engagingly non-technical style, Sir Geikie penned an article about this expedition which appeared in the October, 1881, issue of the British periodical Macmillan’s Magazine under the title “The Geysirs of Yellowstone.”

 

Sir Archibald Geikie (1835-1924)

 

            Sir Geikie, with an unnamed travelling companion, rode the then ten year old transcontinental railroad from the eastern seaboard to Ogden, Utah, and from there traveled north by narrow-gage rail, stagecoach, and carriage to Fort Ellis near Bozeman, Montana.  At Fort Ellis Geikie presented a letter of introduction provided by “authorities at Washington” (probably agents of the United States Geological Survey), and “arranged to travel through the Yellowstone Park, as it is termed, and through the Mountains encircling the head-waters of the Snake River.”  In his story, Sir Geikie explained that Yellowstone Park was “that region of geysirs, mud volcanoes, hot springs and sinter-beds, which the United States Congress, with wise forethought, has set apart from settlement and reserved for the instruction of the people.”

            The military provided Sir Geikie and his companion with horses, mules, a guide, and a mule handler.  The four men packed through Yellowstone — visiting the geysers (or “geysirs,” as it was then spelled) — and then west over the “great divide” and down to a stream called “Henry’s Fork, one of the feeders of the Snake River.”  Following this steam through miles of forest, they eventually found themselves “picking” their “way across a dreary plain of sage brush on the edge of the great basalt flood of Idaho.”

            Sir Geikie’s “great basalt flood of Idaho,” at least the part he visited, isn’t part of the Columbia flood basalts.   Geikie’s flood basalt is actually part of the outpouring from Idaho’s much later great rift valley — though that was likely not evident to the geologists of the time.

            Near the conclusion of his story, Sir Geikie wrote, “The last section of our ride (his time in Idaho) proved to be in a geological sense one of the most interesting parts of the whole journey.  We found that the older trachytic lavas of the hills had been deeply trenched by lateral valleys, and that all these valleys had a floor of the black basalt that had been poured out as the last of the molten materials from the now extinct volcanoes.  There were no visible cones or vents from which these floods of basalt could have proceeded.  We rode for hours by the margin of a vast plain of basalt stretching southward and westward as far as the eye could reach.  It seemed as if the plain had been once a great lake or sea of molten rock which surged along the base of the hills, entering every valley, and leaving there a solid floor of bare black stone.  We camped on this basalt plain near some springs of clear cold water which rise close to its edge.  Wandering over the bare hummocks of rock, on many of which not a vestige of vegetation had yet taken root, I realized with vividness the truth of an assertion made first by Richthofen (most likely referring to Ferdinand van Richthofen, German geologist, 1833-1905), but very generally neglected by geologists, that our modern volcanoes, such as Vesuvius or Etna, present us with by no means the grandest type of volcanic action, but rather belong to a time of failing activity.  There have been periods of tremendous volcanic energy, when, instead of escaping from a local vent, like a Vesuvian cone, the lava has found its way to the surface by innumerable fissures opened for it in the solid crust of the globe over thousands of square miles.”

            Although Geikie was walking on relatively recent flows — most likely millions of years younger than the last of the Columbia basalts — the eruptive mechanisms that eventually filled the eastern reach of southern Idaho’s Snake River Plain often mirror — though not exclusively — those of the Columbia flows.  In that regard Geikie’s statement “Bare hummocks of rock, on many of which not a vestige of vegetation had yet taken root” could very well describe the floor of the Little Spokane River Valley in those years after the great basaltic tides of Columbia lavas had flooded in from the south, but before the subsequent millions of years of erosion, sedimentation, and glacial disruption had turned the valley’s floor fertile once again.

            In 1892 Professor Edward Hull (1829-1917) of the Royal College of Science, Dublin, in his book Volcanos: Past and Present, wrote of the actual Columbia flows, “The absence, or rarity, of volcanic craters … in the neighborhood of these great sheets has led American geologist to the conclusion that the lavas were in many cases extruded from fissures in the earth’s crust rather than from ordinary craters.”

            As for the American viewpoint, in 1897 geologist Israel Cook Russell (1852-1906) penned a dramatic description of the Columbia basalt floods for the abstract of his U. S. Geological Survey paper, Principle Features of the Geology of South Eastern Washington.

            “The Columbia lava flowed about the bases of the mountains of Eastern Washington and the adjacent portion of Idaho in a series of inundations which covered the low country to the south.  The level basaltic plateau meets the mountains … in much the same manner that the sea forms a rugged and deeply indented coast.  The lava entered the valleys and gave them level floors of basalt; the deeply sculptured ridges between the valleys were transformed into capes and headlands; outstanding mountain peaks became islands in the sea of molten rock.”

            Evidence of this basalt infilling can be found both on the surface and below the surface of the Little Spokane River Valley, where at least several of these massive floods poured north over the present day site of Spokane to form molten lakes between the low, rounded mountains rising east, west and north of the valley.  Remnants of these floods suggest the last invading flow reached more than a hundred feet above the present day level of the little town of Clayton.

            Israel Russell also stated, “The great fissure eruptions which supplied the Columbia lava, as the basalt is termed, occurred in the Miocene,” — suggesting that the geologic community had early on assumed as solved both the manner of upwelling and general age of these ancient flows.  And the United States Geological Survey concurs that the Columbia Plateau basalts were formed by over three hundred separate outpours occurring periodically between seventeen and six million years ago — within what geologist recognize as the Miocene epoch.

            Using laboratory and computer modeling, as well as extensive field studies, geologists have been able to visualize just how magnificent and terrifying one of these molten floods would have been.  Accompanied by ongoing tremors as the older lands around these monstrous clusters of fissures settled downward to replace the extruding magma, these floods of highly viscous lava are calculated to have poured across the surface at an average speed of perhaps five miles an hour.  Although that doesn’t sound impressive, if the pace was steady the flood’s front could travel 120 miles every 24 hours.  Even the fastest earthbound animals, all made of fatigable flesh, couldn’t escape that — as the hollow casts of various Miocene era creatures entombed by the lava clearly shows.

            But how could lava have continued to flow hundreds of miles from the point it squeezed out of the earth’s surface?  Evidence suggests that the leading edge of the flood could easily have been a hundred feet high.  The relatively cold crust forming above the flow would have acted as insulation, keeping the lava flowing underneath super-hot (as can be observed today with much smaller lava flows).  Just like the flow’s upper surface, the leading edge would have continually tried to form a solid skin as it — being exposed to the air — cooled.  And the blistering lava behind the blackening leading edge would have continually broken through the crust, billowing forward in luminous tongues, stuttering in the direction of least resistance.

            Finding obstructions such as highlands, mountain peaks, or canyon walls, the flow’s forward momentum would still into lakes of lava.  From there it would gather higher and higher, until it overflowed the obstacle, found a way around, or began flowing in a new direction.  When the outpour finally stopped, it might take several years for the congealed flood to fully cool.

            The new surface left behind would not be smooth.  Though relatively level, this ragged plane of cooling basalt would prove a vast field of lifeless stone, broken into jagged razors of rubble.  It would be strewn with cracks, pits, and mounds, making movement across these newly formed beds difficult in the extreme.  And then, through passing ages of cycling sun and snow, rain and wind, physical and chemical erosion would tear the rocks apart, crumbling the surface into soil.  Streams and rivers would cut canyons.  Ponds and lakes would form.  A few thousand years, or even hundreds of thousands of years would pass between eruptions.  If the quiet was long enough, the jagged terrain might even erode into gently rolling grassland.  But eventually the floods of blistering rock would return, covering everything, and the process would begin again.

            As for the forces driving the uplifts that cracked the earth’s surface into swarms of volcanic vents —into swarms of crustal rips that slowly moved north along the Oregon/Idaho border and into the southeastern tip of Washington State — the root of that story begins approximately 750 million years ago in the interior of the supercontinent of Rodinia.

            Current tectonic theory suggests that the earth’s continental plates — massive, eggshell like fragments of solidified crust — are in constant motion, colliding and ripping apart as they slide over the viscous magma of the planet’s molten mantel.  Geologic hypothesis speculates that the process of supercontinent formation of which Rodinia is a part began about 3½ billion years ago — not long (geologically speaking) after the earth’s condensation from the solar system’s primordial cloud — and that four or five previous supercontinents had existed and broken up in turn before the Rodinia supercontinent came together.  In general, as these supercontinents break apart, the fractures first become visible as rift valleys.  These spreading valleys eventually become inland seas, and then — as these fractured lands drift apart (or more apply are pushed apart by upwelling currents of superhot magma rising out of the earth’s deep interior) — the seas between become oceans.

            750 million years ago the Pacific Northwest segment of what would eventually become the North American continent was wedged within the interior of the above noted supercontinent of Rodinia.  For some time the part of the supercontinent that would eventually support the towns of Spokane, Deer Park, and Clayton was likely an inland flood plain, sequentially covered by in-washes of muddy sediments.  The evidence for this is found at an outcropping of some of the oldest rock so far discovered in the State of Washington — an ancient deposit on Prosser Hill just southeast of the small town of Four Lakes in western Spokane County.  Described as a meta-sedimentary stone showing mud cracks and ripple marks consistent with deposits forming in shallow lakes or along slow moving riverbeds — both subject to periodic drying — this road cut exposure of crumbling slate-like rock is located at — approximately — the 2,500 foot level on the northeastern slope of the hill.  Geologists have dated this mudstone to the middle Proterozoic — 1 billion, 200 million years ago.

 

Prosser Hill Mud Stone
(photo by author)

 

            According to current thinking — and in relation to the present day Pacific Northwest — the rift fracturing the crustal plate of Rodinia in the late Proterozoic Eon would have trended in a north/south direction several dozen miles west of the towns of Spokane, Deer Park, and Clayton.  This would have left the future site of these towns teetering on the very edge of the new North American continental plate.  Forming part of the continental shelf, it’s probable that this area would have subsided below the newly forming Pacific Ocean as the opposite side of the rift was pushed away, and ongoing volcanic extrusions formed a new ocean bottom in its place.  The actual beaches of North America’s new coast would have likely surfaced out of the primal ocean some distance to the east of this opening rift — suggesting that the town of Deer Park would have never been prime ocean front property.

            As the Pacific Northwest’s former self slowly drifted away to drop over the earth’s curvature — drifted away to eventually becoming part of present day China — the leading edge of the new North American plate entered a long period of geologic quiescence.  Geologically speaking, the Pacific Northwest became a coastal backwater.

By 300 million years ago the other side (currently the eastern side) of the North American plate had welded itself into Pangaea, the next supercontinent to form.  Pangaea held together for another 100 million years.  Then, as a massive complex of rifts began separating the North and South American continental plates from Asia, Europe, and Africa some 200 million years ago, Pangaea in turn began to rip apart — the complex of dividing cracks eventually becoming the Atlantic Ocean.

            Even today the Atlantic Ocean continues to expand, and new crustal materials are volcanically extruded along what is now called the mid-Atlantic ridge.  Current hypothesis suggests that it’s a set of massive thermal currents rising from deep in the earth that are pushing the North American plate in a westward trending direction — essentially pushing the North American plate across the Pacific in pursuit of its former self.  Due to this “new” planetary paradigm of some 200 million years ago — as the North American tectonic plate began to move, began to drift over the earth’s surface — the Pacific Northwest’s period of geologic quiescence ended.

            In the wake of the Pacific Northwest’s long separated “Chinese” part, the forces of plate tectonics (continental drift) left a litter of newly formed plates on the ocean’s floor and towering volcanic islands resting on those plates.  As the American continent began scooting westward across the Pacific at an average of two inches a year, it began colliding with this newly extruded material.  In general the floor of the Pacific basin is being pushed down and under the overriding mass of the North American plate — though at times portions of the plates being overridden and the volcanic islands riding on top of those plates have been scrapped off the down and under moving plates.  These scraped lands then collide and weld into the oncoming mass of the North American continent.  As a result, the coastline of the Pacific Northwest continues to expand to the west as new lands are melded onto the coast.  In the last 200 million years this process has added over 300 miles of new continental land to what was once the leading edge of the Rodinia rift.

            One of the side effects of pieces of the former Pacific Basin plunging beneath the overriding North American plate is the generation of tremendous amounts of frictional heat.  This massive heat melts the subducting rock — the down-diving rock — leaving vast pools of magma relatively close to the earth’s surface.  All the while the North American plate continues its slow westward migration over the top of these newly formed hotspots.  It’s believed these subduction induced hotspots melting their way upward through the earth’s crust are the primary cause of volcanism throughout the Pacific Northwest — including the volcanism that forced the molten Columbia basalts through cracks in the earth’s surface.  It’s also believed that these subduction induced hotspots are the reason for the cracks.

            When thinking of rock as a fluid, the same general principles apply as to any other fluid.  Heat stored within a fluid tends to migrate into the walls of the containing vessel.  If that containing vessel is rock, the containing rock will warm.  If the fluid being contained is hot enough, the amount of heat moving into the containing rock will melt it — turning it into molten magma as well.  Since warmer fluid rises and colder fluid sinks, the newly melted and generally cooler lava at the top of the containment vessel will tend to sink and be replaced by hotter lava from beneath.  Due to the natural bias of heated materials to rise, this hotter lava will continue melting its way upward through the once solid rock.

This simple principle of heat migration outlines how vast pools of magma can rise to the surface through an overburden of solid crust.  As the pools approach the thinning surface they often bulge the still solid crust upward.  Stress cracks — rips — tend to form as a result of the increasing surface area of these stressed, dome-like bulges.  And these surface rips are the areas of weakness through which the upward-pressing molten rock can find a pathway to the surface.

This is believed to be the basic geologic mechanics that allowed the Columbia basalts to repeatedly flood across the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

            Evidence of Israel Russell’s “great fissure eruptions” is found in the form of what geologist call dikes.  A dike is the infilling within a cleft opened within pre-existing rock.  When crustal fissures ripped through the existing rock surface and the lava being pushed up and out of these fissures eventually stopped, what remained within the fissure would cool and solidify.  Chemical, magnetic, and visual differences between the original surface rock and the infilling rock of the dike can reveal the fissure and therefore the site of eruption.  In some instances the melt-edges of the original rock through which these lavas have pushed prove more resistant to erosion than the outpoured lava, allowing the vent dikes to stand out in relief as the lavas around them erode away.  These dikes are usually no more than a dozen feet wide, though miles in length.  And the fissures tend to cluster in swarms — the swarms covering areas a mile or two wide and 30 to 120 miles long.  With some variation, these vents tend to align themselves in a roughly north/south direction — suggesting they are following the primordial subduction fault lines originally traced along North America’s archaic coast.

            As far as chemical traces and exact percentages of mineral ratios are concerned, volcanic materials erupted from different sites are never exactly alike.  These minute differences can act as fingerprints — allowing specific lavas to be grouped together as to source.  When visible, source dykes can be identify by analyzing — by fingerprinting — the materials frozen in their throats.  A large number of the Columbia basalts have been mapped by tracing these unique chemical signatures across hundreds of miles of flows.  Though much work is yet to be done, each year the picture becomes a little clearer.  But through it all, the discoveries made since Archibald Geikie, Professor Hull, and Israel Russell’s day have done little to alter these men’s original descriptions of the Pacific Northwest flood basalts.  Once these outpours truly were a sea of molten rock.

            Geologists have also determined that the Selkirk Mountain Range once continued hundreds of miles to the south of present day Mount Spokane.  Other than a few isolated peaks, most of these mountains have disappeared — have sunk as the vast pools of lava beneath emptied out onto the surface and the original surface sank, taking the mountains with them.  Steptoe Butte, approximately 40 miles south of Spokane, is the top of one such sunken mountain.

            As for what the original land was like — the lands now buried with the southern reach of the Selkirk Mountains — some clues can be gained from looking to the land both north and south of the Columbia Plateau.  Otherwise — and especially in the early 20^th century — most anything could be imagined beneath this basaltic overburden.  And the Inland Empire’s early oil prospectors seemed to imagine whatever might prove most profitable.

… to be continued …

 

Part 4: Historic Oil Wells of the Little Spokane River Valley

 

 

(all rights to this material retained by author)

 

A Review of the Historic Oil Wells

of the Little Spokane River Valley

&

Regions Around

(part four)

by

Wally Lee Parker

 

… whatever one finds beneath …

            Since science is by its very nature an argumentative and confrontational process, the acceptance of the organic hypothesis for the creation of oil — the theory that oil is the highly altered remains of once living plants and animals — historically was and on occasion still is challenged.  Sometimes these challenges are derived from legitimate questions regarding the validity of contemporary scientific convention, and sometimes they’re nothing more than uniquely self-serving promotional efforts clearly intended to support a specific proposal to drill into what mainstream theory assures us is totally inorganic bedrock — or to depths generally assumed to be barren of oil.  Often these promotional efforts, both historic and contemporary, will follow a line of argument suggesting that while the current theory of oil formation is not wrong, oil can also be produced through inorganic processes that mainstream science has discounted, and that a few dollars and a little faith invested into whatever venture is being proposed will most certainly tap into that endless sea of oil impounded just below the depths so far plumbed — oil often characterized as being of a type heretofore unknown to science.

            Mainstream petroleum geologists are primarily interested in sandstones from the Paleozoic and Mesozoic — a layered set of extensive geologic eras beginning approximately 542 million years ago and ending about 65 million years ago.  Most of the world’s known reserves of oil were formed somewhere within this large slice of geologic history.

            The above noted sandstones are a granular type of sedimentary rock sometimes having enough space between individual grains to harbor minute drops of oil.  As a result, most oil reserves are found within these types of rock.

            As for where the oil itself originated; in 1883 Professor Joseph Le Conte of the University of California published a book titled Elements of Geology.  Regarding the origin of petroleum and coal, he wrote, “The most probable view seems to be that both coal and petroleum are formed from organic matter, but of different kinds and under slightly different conditions — that coal is formed from terrestrial vascular plants, in the presence of fresh water, while … petroleum … (is) … formed from more perishable cellular plants and animals, in the presence of salt-water.”

            Twenty five years later, in 1908, United States Geological Survey Bulletin #335 noted that though “The prevalent scientific opinion is in favor of the organic theory,” there was still a group proposing that oil might be “… of inorganic origin, having been formed by the chemical action of water on the formerly un-oxidized mineral constituents of the rock.”

            The basics of oilfield geology were clearly laid out by Paul M. Paine and B. K. Stroud in their 1913 volume Oil Production Methods when they stated, “It is now a well-established fact that practically all petroleum is obtained from sedimentaries (sedimentary rock) and that the major portion is derived from the sands and sandstones, and that these productive measures (productive layers) are usually overlain with a so-called cap rock.  The cap rock is an impervious layer of clay, shale, or some other compact material, which prevents ascension (the migration upward) on the part of the gas and oil into higher strata …”

            As for how these strata were originally deposited, the assumption is that materials eroded from the land were transported by relatively fast moving rivers to the oceans, where, on encountering slower waters, they settle.

            “It is evident … the disposition will not be uniform, but that the coarser and heavier bodied will sink first, leaving the finer particles in a longer period of suspension.  For this reason sands and gravels imply shallow water disposition while the more comminuted materials that form the shales and clays remain in suspension and are transported farther from shore so that they are deposited at greater depths and in more quiet waters.  In the course of time these become covered with further depositions, the weight of the overlying strata caused the lower measures to become more compact and rock-like, and there are built up wide bodies of strata horizontally placed, or with only a slight inclination.  During this period the shore line may advance and retreat many times, so that what was deep water becomes shallow, resulting in a bed of sand being deposited on top of a layer of clay, and vice versa.  Eventually the constant effort of the internal forces at work in the earth’s interior may alter the position of the entire mass, or portions of it, and tangential stresses may distort it by causing it to crinkle and bend into arch-like folds.”

            These sediments can be extremely rich in organic debris derived from the cyclic blooms of minute plants and animals living and dying within the mineral rich water.  This organic debris, settling as muck intermixed with the sand and clay, is what will eventually become oil.

            Once solidified into the earth’s crust, these horizontal deposits can be distorted by ongoing crustal stresses.  If the deposits are compressed from one or two sides, they tend to fold.  “Anticline is the name given to the arch-like position taken by strata when they have been folded.  The corresponding position of strata when they are bent down and then up is known as a syncline, and frequently the crinkling in the earth’s crust that has brought about the folding structure has resulted in a series of wave-like alternating anticlines and synclines.”

            Paine and Stroud’s description of the sedimentary process is also a classic description of the rock strata found in the classic oil field.  On the way down, oilfield drills tend to pass through successive layers of sandstone and shale just as described.  Since each layer of sandstone would normally be expected to contain only a small amount of oil, geologist look for areas in which the originally level — horizontal — rock structures have been folded — inclined — into Paine and Stroud’s “arch-like folds.”  The ability of gases and fluids to migrate through the sandstone within such folds also allows them to collect in discrete layers once the once horizontal sandstones have been tilted.

            The force impelling this migration within anticlines is described as a tendency “in the course of time to separate according to (the) respective specific gravities” of the substances involved.  “The gas rises to the topmost point available while the water, if such be present, displaces the oil by reason of its greater weight.  Thus there are three fairly well-marked zones, first the gas, then the oil, and finally at the bottom the water.”

            In other words the experience of drilling, and the record keeping involved, allowed early oil prospectors to begin diagramming out the geology of oil fields.  In the case of oil, often the experience came first, and the theory second.  The assumption derived from experience was that oil was most likely to be found where the geology was similar to what had been previously seen.  But with geology, the problem is seeing what is hidden.

            In any vertical slice of the earth’s crust — a river-cut canyon wall of sedimentary rock for instance — the rock at the bottom of the wall should be older than the rock at the top.  Since geology is an active process, there are exceptions.  Over geologic ages rocks can be twisted and folded and sometimes even doubling over on themselves so the oldest are on top.  Younger materials heated or wetted into plasticity can sometimes be pressure injected into cracks and crevices in older rocks — filling the cracks and crevices to form discontinuous geological features referred to as dikes.  And of course erosion can gnaw away entire ages of rock.  So even if the sequence of disposition is correct, new sediments or flows over the top of these eroded exposures can give the assumption of continuity while leaving vast gaps in the record.  Despite all this, as a general rule, if you want to see back in time you need to look deeper beneath the surface, or find areas where the once deeper rocks have been exposed at the surface.

            Also, growing consensus within early geology settled toward the idea that coal and oil, though related in so far as both being derived from once living organisms, were produced through differing geological processes.  Since the geologic history of any given region is central in determining that area’s potential as a repository for oil, coal, and natural gas, by reading the specifics of the local geology it should be possible to surmise the likelihood that any kind of fossil fuel can be found — and which type of fuel the local geology is likely to produce.  The fault in all this is that before such a determination can be made, the local geologic history has to be visible.

            The easiest determination for coal is when seams are seen at the surface.  Oil seeps are often evidence of something more below ground.  And flammable gas bubbling up is a clear indicator of underground activity of some sort.  Lacking these — and keeping in mind that “salting” of oil seepages is at the root of many oil scams, while bubbling natural gas most often proves to be common “swamp gas” rather than petroleum or coal gas — geologist usually begin searching for fossil fuels by determining the age and structure of the visible rocks around.

            The classic fundamental in determining geologic age in sedimentary materials – and oil with rare exception is found in porous sedimentary materials – is that the deeper one goes in the deposit, the older the deposit is.  Simply put, since sedimentary disposition is something that occurs on the top, what’s on top is younger than whatever one finds beneath.

 

… to be continued …