Setting
Compared to many of the other California oil fields, Coalinga is large and spread out, but contains a few areas of concentrated development around the richer pools. The field has a rough semicircular shape open to the southeast, approximately twelve miles long by six across, with the town of Coalinga at the southwestern limit of the semicircle, and the agricultural Pleasant Valley inside. The oil field is mainly on the high ground around the valley, with the western part of the semicircle at the base of the Alcalde Hills, and the eastern part on the long and low Anticline Ridge, which separates Pleasant Valley and Coalinga from Interstate 5 and the main part of the San Joaquin Valley. The anticline in Anticline ridge continues to the southeast as the Guijarral Hills Oil Field and the Kettleman North Dome Oil Field. California State routes 33 and 198, which join together for the stretch through and north of Coalinga, cut across the Coalinga field and cross Anticline Ridge; along the route a passing traveler has a good view of oil field operations.
As the climate in the region is semiarid to arid, most of the native vegetation is grassland and low scrub. Areas of particularly dense oil development are almost entirely denuded of vegetation.
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