In exploration for oil the determination of the existence and location of the proper horizon is but an initial step. For instance, the oil of the Midcontinent field of the United States is in the beds of the Pennsylvanian, which are known to occupy an enormous area extending from Illinois and Wyoming south to the Gulf of Mexico. This information is clearly not sufficiently specific to limit the location of drill holes. Sometimes seepages of oil or showings of gas near the surface are sufficient basis for localizing the drill holes.[28] Commonly, however, it is necessary to find some structural feature in the nature of a dome or anticline which suggests proper trapping conditions for an oil pool. This is accomplished by geologic and topographic mapping of the surface. Levels and contours are run and outcrops are platted. As the outcrops are usually of different geologic horizons, it is necessary to select some one or more identifiable beds as horizon markers, and to map their elevations at different points as a means of determining the structural contours of the beds. When several key horizons are thus used, their elevations must be reduced to the elevations of one common horizon by the addition or subtraction of the intervals between them. For instance, knowing the succession, an outcrop of a certain sandstone may indicate that the marking horizon is 200 feet below, and the structural contour is then drawn accordingly. Observations of strike and dip at the surface are helpful; but where the beds are but slightly flexed, small irregularities in deposition may make strike and dip observations useless in determining major structures. It is then necessary to have recourse to the elevations of the marking horizons.
In the selection of key horizons, knowledge of the conditions of sedimentation is very important. For example, some of the oil fields occur in great delta deposits, where successive advances and retreats of the sea have resulted in the interleaving of marine and land deposits. The land-deposited sediments usually show great variations in character and thickness laterally and vertically; and a given bed is likely to thin out and disappear when traced for a short distance, rendering futile its use as a marker. The marine sediments, on the either hand, show a much greater degree of uniformity and continuity, and a bed of marine limestone may extend over a large area and be very useful as a key horizon.