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The Norphlet Crater: When A Good Well Goes Bad

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Hidden in the woods of Union County, Arkansas, a large unassuming sinkhole housing a small pond called the Norphlet Crater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Although it's easy to overlook, this hole in the ground has quite a story to tell about the early days of the oil and gas industry in Arkansas and a gas well that could not be tamed. Topographic map view of Norphlet Crater In 1922, two years following the Hill No. 1 gas well drilled by Constantine Oil and Refining Company near El Dorado, Arkansas, oil and gas production in the area expanded dramatically and El Dorado became the hub for the petroleum industry in Arkansas. Small independent oil companies and major companies with internationally recognized names, such as Shell and Standard Oil, were all drilling in Union County, Arkansas. In the pine covered hills and farmland about eight miles northwest of El Dorado, near the small town of Norphlet, a cotton field [1] on a farm own...
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Structural Geology Trip to the Ouachita Mountains

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People looking at folds. Faces obscured to protect identities. ¡Mas folding!. Action shot of man pointing at a fold Normal fault in sandstones and shales Recently, I got to join a field trip to the Ouachita Mountains to discuss a spectacular structural event that took place in the Late Paleozoic. The strata of the Ouachita Mountains are dominantly sandstone and shale beds from the Cambrian to the Pennsylvanian that were deposited in an offshore, deep water environment somewhat similar to the deep water regime of the Gulf of Mexico. Beginning in the Mississippian Subperiod, a compressional event initiated as proto-North America collided with a small land mass (volcanic arc) to the south creating the Ouachita Mountains, a...
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The Fatal First Natural Gas Well in Southern Arkansas

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At 2:10 pm on Thursday, April 22, 1920, the small town of El Dorado, in Union County, Arkansas was busily going about its day. Over a dozen miles northwest, a drilling rig had just finished drilling the first productive oil well in Arkansas six days prior, the Hunter No. 1. However, just two miles [1]  southwest of town was another well being drilled that was going to make headlines as the first productive gas well in southern Arkansas.  Top left: land owners, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hill. Center: the Hill No. 1 well blowing water, gas, and mud into the air. Bottom right: Constantine Oil and Refining geologist, J. J. Victor. [2] The Hill No. 1 well (Sec. 1, T.18S., R.16W.) operated by Constantine Oil and Refining Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma drilled to 2,226 feet, when it became an "unexpected 'gusher'" and a "great 'gasser'" [3] . The Monroe News-Star newspaper of Monroe, Louisiana reported that it received a kick (i.e. anomalous influx of...
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