Oil Seeping from Ground in Parent's Back Yard

Self | 03/21/05 | Laurel Barney

[pointsal]

Is there a gas station upgradient? This stuff travels on the surface of the water table. Before you think you've hit the legal jackpot, it would be wise to start walking one or two blocks and be sure you know who/what your neighors are doing or have done.

[mewzilla]

Can you get the stuff analyzed? I'd want to know what it was, especially if it wasn't crude. And are your parents on well or city water? If the former, they might want to have their well water tested, too.

[chainsaw]

I think I've found my long lost hill billy relatives that moved to Los Gatos.

[mystery-ak]

I am your new best buddy....btw are you married?

[razorback-bert]

If it is oil and black, it is dead oil containing no methane, live oil is green.

[tapatio]

Photograph of pump unit atop an oil well in Los Gatos, Calif. The pump unit and well are in a fenced enclosure in the parking lot of a commercial office building on Los Gatos Boulevard near Garden Lane. According to the current owner, the well has not produced oil for many years, but unconfirmed reports suggest that the well yielded about 8 barrels of oil per day in 1953. Geologic and organic-geochemical information from this and other historical oil wells in the Los Gatos area provide important insights into the subsurface geology and geologic history of the southwestern Santa Clara Valley.

[jimtorr]

No reason you should know where Los Gatos is, unless you live near the southern end of San Francisco Bay.

Los Gatos is a small town on the SW corner of San Jose, CA, in Santa Clara County. Look at the map in post #77. Find San Francisco, and track south down the Bay. In the map square just to the south of the end of the Bay is Santa Clara County, and you will see the name of the city of San Jose.

Look under and to the left of the 'S' in San Jose, and you will see two little green triangles that represent known oil seeps. Los Gatos is located somewhere in that vicinity.

[mercy]

Beverly Hills High School has a working oil well on Pico Blvd. (Or is it Olympic?)

[tinamina]

I love Los Gatos, lived there from 1995-2002, in a brick house that was in Sunset mag in 1949. When it was built, that subdivision allowed no Orientals. The new owners did a remodel which takes up the whole lot. I saw one of those older houses go for 1.7 mil, just for the large lot.

[Pharmboy]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (etc.)

Excellent.

[mercy]

Yeah, it's amazin ain't it. Silicon valley has spread sooooooooo far. Talk about a bubble!

[FreedomCalls]

One of the most common indicators of crude oil deposits is an oil seep in fractured non-permeable cap rock. You have the oil seep. You are in California, so you have the geologic faults. Any recent earthquakes in the area? And is the cap rock there non-permeable?

Just don't get your hopes up. There is a lot of petroleum in California that is off limits to drilling because of environmental concerns. For instance there is a huge field off the Coast there.

[nickcarraway]

I don't see anything near that Rotten Robbies. It looks like there is a park across the street.

[jackbill]

Do your city zoning laws allow oil rigs in the back yard?

Not to worry, you can probably buy the Zoning Board off with a percentage.

[The Grim Freeper]

I live on Englewood Avenue in Los Gatos. It's pretty ridiculous what houses are going for on that street. My parents live in a different area of Los Gatos (I don't want to say, because I don't want them to get booted out of the house they've lived in for 33 years). The neighbors across the street from them dozed the house they purchased about 5 years ago, put up two large houses on the property, and sold each one for $1.4 and 1.6M respectively. Can I just say that there is NO WAY those properties are worth that.

[Ole Okie]

There are a lot of oil seeps. That was one of the ways early wildcatters looked for oil, along with "creekology".

[In veno, veritas]

Don't touch it!!! You've stumbled across an old dinosaur burial ground! The land must revert back to natural use or face the full penalties of law.

[mercy]

But then It could go on a long time cause the yankees that flee the cesspool of the NE come out to Kalifornicate and think they have found Shangrilah. Even San Jose. It really does boggle the mind.

[Rebelbase]

"Gee nobody wants to help you ... only use you to launch one-liners. Good ole FR. "

If there's an ounce of humor to be found in a thread it will be expunged before the thread gets serious.

[deport]

Thanks... I suspected CA but wasn't sure and had no idea where in CA if it was CA.