What's Oil Doing in Signal Hill, Long Beach, California?
...back to page one of Signal Hill
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Five million years ago, Los Angeles was actually deep under water, perhaps as much as 1,500 meters (almost one mile) or more under the Pacific Ocean. This area was known as the Los Angeles Basin. As we know, a basin collects mud and sand from the uplands surrounding it. Since the Miocene Epoch (beginning 20 million years ago) The Los Angeles Basin collected more than 7,000 meters (20,000 feet) of sediments. That's alot of dirt! |
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As more and more sediments continued to pile on top, the pressure changed this enormous thickness of sediments into rock. This thickness of rock is composed of a layer of sandstone, a layer of shale, a layer of sandstone, a layer of shale, a layer...you get the idea. This is because of constantly changing geologic conditions during deposition. Mountains go up, mountains get eroded down; sea level rises, sea level falls. The LA Basin gets shallower, the LA Basin gets deeper. This lead to the alternating layers of sands and muds that formed the rocks we see at Signal Hill today. All of these sandstones at Signal Hill contain oil. The discovery well, called Los Alamitos #1, found oil trapped in the Alamitos Sand, at the top of this stratigraphic column. Need help understanding this diagram?
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