Setting
The oil field underlies the Elk Hills, a range of low hills trending west to east with a high elevation of 1,551 feet (473 m). To the north, east, and southeast are the agricultural fields of the San Joaquin Valley, and to the southwest is the Buena Vista Valley. Across that valley is the town of Taft, and the enormous Midway-Sunset Oil Field, the largest in California. West of the Elk Hills is the large McKittrick Oil Field, and northwest is the even larger Cymric Oil Field. Although the Elk Hills is only one field of many in a region of oil fields, it is geographically distinct because its boundaries correspond with the shape of the hills that give it its name.
Skyline Road, which is closed to public entry, follows the long axis of the field. It begins near McKittrick and goes east, following the crest of the hills. Perpendicular to this road, and about halfway down its length, is Elk Hills Road, which connects the town of Taft to the south with Buttonwillow to the north. Two guarded gates to the Occidental Petroleum operations, 3 and 4, make up the intersection with Skyline Road on the summit of the range.
Overall the oil field is approximately 14 miles (23 km) long roughly following the crestline of the hills, and approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) across at the widest point. It encompasses 21,170 acres (85.7 km2) considered productive, or about 33 square miles (85 km2).
Read more about this topic: Elk Hills Oil Field
Famous quotes containing the word setting:
“A happy marriage perhaps represents the ideal of human relationship—a setting in which each partner, while acknowledging the need of the other, feels free to be what he or she by nature is: a relationship in which instinct as well as intellect can find expression; in which giving and taking are equal; in which each accepts the other, and I confronts Thou.”
—Anthony Storr (b. 1920)
“something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)