TayAg08 and WestTxAg06
The History of the Permian Basin ... now that is a tough assignment, even for a thesis or dissertation. Unfortunately, I do not have the knowledge or the time remaining on this earth to cover the subject to any depth. But what I do know about the subject will fit well within this thread ... and may aid you in further research.
First, over the years I have seen short articles about the PB history in such publications as National Geographic. But I am not aware of a book in popular format. Most of the information available is in geological terms ... which after all is the main feature of the Permian Basin.
To make this point I must take you back to the beginning in geologic time, say 250 billion years or so ago. This is the earliest map I have found of the Permian Basin:
As you may note, West Texas was somewhat different then. At that time West Texas was a part of Pangea along with Africe, North and South America and Greenland. It took a few million years of techtonic movement for Africa to go east, North America to rotate counter clockwise and move north, and Texas to end up somewhat in its present position but covered by the sea. Gradually with some uplifts from techtonic collisions, a meteor in what is now the Gulf of Mexico, and forces of wind and water erosion, Texas began to take shape. Eventually the sea covering West Texas was drained southward by uplifting of the bed and only an inland sea with a narrow opening covered West Texas. That sea lasted millions of years but eventually evaporation and drainage took more water out of the sea than was replenished and West Texas became the dry spot we now recognize.
Now during that time of inland sea over West Texas, subsidence became a big factor in creating a huge basin ... now estimated at 250 miles wide and 200 miles long. The sea floor became the final resting place for eons of dead water creatures ... all containing an element called Carbon. These deposits on the sea floor were hundreds of feet thick. After the sea eventually dried up that basin and its sediments were covered by soil eroding from surrounding mountains and blowing in from Lubbock, Plainview and Kansas. The combination of pressure, and the heat of compression created a nice oven to cook that sediment soup to create hydrocarbons of oil and gas.
Now I am sure most of you are familiar with the bottom of a sea ... or at least the bottom of your local lake to know that the bottoms contain reefs, canyons, shelfs, basins, ridges and platforms. The bottom of the Permian Sea was the same. Also, the Permian Sea did not dry up all at once but over the period of millions of years. So that is what created the market for the skills of geologists to map those old underwater structures in hopes of finding the location where the thickest and most likely oil bearing sediment beds were located.
So with that 250 billion years of history behind us we can look at the Permian Basin as we know it today.
Today the Permian Basin underlies the following counties in Texas: Andrews, Borden, Crane, Dawson, Ector, Gaines, Glasscock, Howard, Loving, Martin, Midland, Pecos, Reeves, Terrell, Upton, Ward, and Winkler. It underlies part of the Caprock country mentioned by TayAg08 and the Edwards Plateau. Although Scurry County is not on the list, the Snyder Field is commonly associated with it. Likewise, Mitchell County is not listed yet the location of the first well credited to the Permian Basin was drilled in 1921 in Mitchell County (Colorado City.)
Since that well in 1921, an estimated 40,000 exploratory wells have been drilled in the Permian Basin and 200,000 development wells. By 1993, 14.9 billion barrels of oil had been pumped from that region.
The fun part of the history of the Permian Basin is that the Republic of Texas and soon thereafter the State of Texas dedicated millions of acres of land to the Permanent School Fund and to the Permanent University Fund. But not carried away with this largesse, both identified that land as being those counties in West Texas considered to be a part of the Chihuahua Desert (i.e., the Permian Basin.)
Suggested Reading: (This is geologic technical but put on your technical filters and it scans pretty rapidly ... and it has some nice thumbnail illustrations.
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/staff/scholle/guadalupe.html[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 9/15/2006 1:45p).]
Edit to change date of first well drilled in Permian Basin from 1821 to 1921. Took me 3 months to spot that error.
[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 12/18/2006 7:57p).]
