Posted on 03/19/2005 4:50:11 PM PST by The Grim Freeper
Today, my mother asked me to come see something in their Los Gatos back yard. She took me out to the corner of their large lot (large for Los Gatos, anyway), and she pointed out to me some black, shiny substance seeping out of the ground in patches, and along a line about 10 feet in length. The last heavy rain had made this substance come to the surface.
I said "It looks like oil," and she said she thought so, too. I stuck my finger in it, and it was black, slick, and after I'd rubbed it around to almost a drying point, a little bit gunky. Like crude oil.
We know my parent's property sits on a water table, because the last big earthquake, they weren't anxious to sit in the house, so they sat on the ground, and the ground was all wet (even though it hadn't rained in months).
Also, the heavy rains have caused a number of cracks to appear and/or widen in the brick work and driveway and porches and patios of my parents older home. We definitely are expecting a "big one." We just don't know when, of course. We weathered the Loma Prieta earthquake with a minimum of property damage and some major "rattled" nerves.
But all that is to say, has anyone here ever heard of such a thing? Could crude oil be seeping to the ground surface due to the heavy rains? Could it be something else? If it's oil, what do we do? Do we report it?
What is the County name where you parents live?
I wouldn't bet on it. While it is highly unlikely that an unkown deposit has just now started to seep to the surface, there are more things in Heaven and California than man can imagine.
With the San Andreas fault just beyond Los Gatos, there is no telling what could come to the surface.
Report nothing! That is my real estate experience talking.
Oh, I figured out a while ago that Law School is pointless. :-) We have wireless network, which allows me to surf the Net (ample time spent on FR of course) during class, without which I simply could not get through the day. Law school is just a bottleneck to limit the number of lawyers out there, and there are still too many!
Ah, the modern education system. I spent thousands of dollars I don't have, waste years of my life (well, not waste, I love the social aspect), then they give me a piece of paper saying I'm competent (which I'm clearly not!). Then I learn how to do the job when on the job, once I procure one. What a farce.
Not many people know this, but Los Gatos had a little oil field," relates Los Gatos historian William "Bill" Wulf, a former Los Gatan himself. "Around 1901, oil was discovered on both sides of Los Gatos Boulevard, including around what is now Live Oak Manor. Most of the land with the oil was owned by the Main family, a prominent family in town at the time."
"There was Orchard Tract One and Orchard Tract Two, and there were oil derricks spouting up over the fruit orchards," he continues, chuckling at the incongruity. "That's all they talked about in those years; there was a real madness about it. They thought the town was going to be rich."
"None of the wells produced much, though. They weren't commercially viable—only about five to 10 barrels a day," Wulf says. The remains of one well, he adds, can still be seen if folks know where to look—behind the gas station at the intersection of Los Gatos Boulevard and Garden Lane.
Do they have a seement pond in th' yard?
But seriously...
There could be a pipeline in the area leaking. Contact the County and ask them about pipelines in the area. Don't tell them that oil is "seeping" into the yard; say it's "leaking". (Ya gotta know what to say to get through to these civil servants!)
OK oh Hollier Than Thou,
Ponder this: You buy a house that sits on some land and you pay a fricking small fortune for it cause it's in Kalifornicate. You live there for several years (or decades) and then you discover the place is a toxic waste dump ... your kids have incurable diseases and your own health has been so damaged that you'll probably lose 30% of your expected life span. All this because some SOB poisoned you and your family.
But you would never sue. Nooooooooooooo! Because your are too righteous to take such disgusting measures as to ever take someone to court.
Effing simpleton!
Santa Clara County. Los Gatos is in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Bordered by San Jose, Almaden Valley, and Saratoga.
Tell your mom if she doesn't want her life to get very interesting, she should forget she saw it and say nothing to anybody. You likewise! It could be a lot of things but Spindletop it ain't!
Quote: "Gee nobody wants to help you ... only use you to launch one-liners." Good one-liner mercy!! /sarcasm
Quote: "There are no unknown deposits of oil anywhere in california. They are all known and mapped." Sorry, that's total BS. If that were so, the reservoirs would have been tapped long ago. As an employee of a worldwide oilfield service company that performs seismic surveys, you obviously don't have a clue about that topic. However, I don't know about the mineral rights in The People's Republic of China, oops, I mean California, and make no claim to.
Yeeeee Haaaaa!
Check and make sure you own the mineral rights.
The gas station is the Rotten Robbie station on Los Gatos Blvd.; I fill up there all the time. I'll have to have a look around next time I'm there.
Grim, are your parents near that location?
Since it was discovered in California they will have to move to Tennessee, vice versa what the Clampetts did.
Definely. Most of the Los Angeles area was drilled, there were oil platforms all over the area that is now Los Angeles, between Sunset and LAX and between the ocean and Vermont street. I think Standard Oil still owns the mineral rights to most of the Los Angeles basin.
Maybe you did strike oil!
I think others here can direct you further.
While California is a major petroleum producing state, northern California has always been the poor step child when it comes to oil and gas discoveries and production. Nevertheless, there are deposits in the bay area that have been pumped as recently as the late 1940's. There was the Moody Gulch field that I mentioned, but also there is the Sargent oil field in Santa Clara Valley and the Halfmoon Bay oil fields in San Mateo County. I remember as a young Boy Scout camping south of Halfmoon Bay and finding the abandoned well head stubs still oozing and bubbling oil. Naturally occuring "tar balls" were always found on the local beaches.
After the Loma Prieta earthquake I observed in the mountains near Pescadero (east side of the San Andreas fault, about 8-10 miles from the ocean), new fissures and cracks created by the earthquake that were emitting so much natural gas that, for the sake of safety, the local residents has inserted pipes and had ignited the gas. The flames burned off the gas for months before quietly dying off.
Why not run some simple tests on that ooze you found? Petroleum is flammable, is your ooze flammable? Petroleum is lighter than water, does your ooze float? Petroleum is immiscible (it won't mix) with water, is your ooze immiscible? Petroleum on water will disperse into very thin layers that (in sunlight) will have a noticeable sheen or iridescence, does your ooze do this?
Let us know how your tests turn out.
Here are just a few of the many links referencing the Moody Gulch oil discovery, as well as other bay area oil fields...
Oil and Gas Production History in California (PDF)
Santa Clara Valley History, Part 15, Oilfields
The Story of Our Valley
Hope you find this information useful to you.
--Boot Hill
At one time, there was be tar on the beach here. The local tribe, the Chumash, had a name for it. They called it Pismo.
A lot of counties have online access to property deeds. I'm guessing you could check your parents deed to see of the mineral rights had been removed. I'm guessing that the mineral rights would have to be on record down at the courthouse. Some counties have all their records online.
My .02 .
I've seen the map. If there is anything worth tapping ... ANYWHERE in Ca. ... the spigot is running.
The map hangs on a wall in the TRW building in LA.
One of those green triangles looks to me like it may be very close to Los Gatos. It's in Santa Clara County, just West of San Jose. Lovely suburb of San Jose.
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