Salt Lake Oil Field

Location of the Salt Lake Oil Field in the context of the Los Angeles Basin and Southern California. Other oil fields are shown in gray.

The Salt Lake Oil Field is an oil field underneath the city of Los Angeles, California. Discovered in 1902, and developed quickly in the following years, the Salt Lake field was once the most productive in California;[1] over 50 million barrels of oil have been extracted from it, mostly in the first part of the twentieth century, although modest drilling and extraction from the field using an urban "drilling island" resumed in 1962. As of 2009, the only operator on the field was Plains Exploration & Production (PXP).[2] The field is also notable as being the source, by long-term seepage of crude oil to the ground surface along the 6th Street Fault, of the famous La Brea Tar Pits.

The adjacent and geologically related South Salt Lake Oil Field, not discovered until 1970, is still productive from an urban drillsite it shares with the nearby Beverly Hills Oil Field, also run by Plains Exploration and Production.[3]

  1. ^ Meehan, RL; Hamilton, DA (1992). Bernard W. Pipkin; Richard J. Proctor (eds.). "Cause of the 1985 Ross Store Explosion and Other Gas Ventings, Fairfax District, Los Angeles," Engineering geology practice in southern California. Association of Engineering Geologists. Southern California Section. pp. 145–147. ISBN 0-89863-171-8.
  2. ^ Salt Lake Field query, California Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources
  3. ^ South Salt Lake Field query, California Department of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources