Kern River Oil Field - Geology

Geology

Unlike some of the other Kern County oil fields which contain numerous pools, the Kern River field has one large pool, named for the field itself (the Kern River) and two smaller pools, the Vedder and Jewett, discovered in 1981 and 1985 respectively. The formation containing the Kern River pool is of Pliocene-Pleistocene age, and lies 400 to 1,300 feet (400 m) below ground surface; the Vedder and Jewett are of Oligocene and Miocene ages, respectively, with depths of 4,700 and 4,220 feet (1,290 m).

The deepest well in the Kern River Oil Field was originally drilled by Standard Oil of California, and attained a depth of 6,986 feet (2,129 m) below ground surface. The granitic basement rocks were of late Jurassic age.