WTGS 100 Year Anniversary: A Core Workshop of Early Permian Basin Field Discoveries Robert F. Lindsay & Robert C. Trentham

    In January 2026 the West Texas Geological Society will celebrate its 100th  Anniversary. It has been over a century since the earliest field discoveries were made in the Permian Basin. With the support of the West Texas Geological Society, a Core Workshop is planned to revisit early field discoveries.
   In identifying early cored wells, several cores were found to require additional work. As an example, core from Westbrook Field (1st discovery of commercial oil in the Permian Basin) and Artesia Field (3rd discovery) have not been slabbed. These cores require funding for core slabbing, boxing, photography, etc. for inclusion in the core workshop. We anticipate a few additional cores may need similar preparation. All cores will require a minimum of core photography and thin section preparation to adequately describe the core for inclusion in the core workshop. Donations of core analysis, drilling history, etc. would also be of great value to the core workshop.
We estimate the cost of core preparation to be a minimum of $25,000. Funding will be managed by the West Texas Geological Society.
Below are 23 key fields that have been identified. These field discoveries opened the Permian Basin to additional exploration and development, and established it as a Super Basin:

Westbrook (1920) UCLFK
Big Lake (1923) GRBG
Big Lake (1929) ELLN
Artesia (1924) GRBG-SADR
McElroy (1925) GRBG *
McCamey (1925) GRBG-SADR *
Wheat (1925) BCYN *
Penwell (1925) SADR
Empire (1926) YTES
Maljamar (1926) GRBG
Hendricks (1926) YTES
Yates (1926) SADR
Waddell (1927) GRBG-SADR
Shipley (1928) ?
Kermit (1928) ?
Pecos Valley (1928) YTES *
Vacuum (1929) GRBG-SADR
Keystone (1929) YTES
Eunice Monument (1929) GRBG *
North Ward-Estes (1929) YTES/QUEN *
Sand Hills (1931) TUBS
Sand Hills (1935) MCKT, SIMP
Goldsmith (1935) SADR *
*Fields with cores identified and available

   The Core Workshop will be published as a pdf volume. If you have information on any of these fields, please consider contributing a write-up to the publication. 
   If you would like to contribute a core to the WTGS Core Workshop, the core will be temporarily housed at the University of Texas at the Permian Basin (UTPB) for description by the core workshop organizers, UTPB graduate students, or core contributors themselves. Upon completion of the WTGS Core Workshop donated cores will be returned to the core contributors. If the core contributor would like, cores can be housed permanently at UTPB at no expense. We envision creating a core inventory where these cores, thin sections, etc. would be available for study by any company, university, or individual.  
   Please contact us with any questions you may have about financial support. Please earmark your contribution for the WTGS 100-Year Core Workshop, and send to it to the attention of Shellie Crossland at the West Texas Geology Foundation, PO Box 1595, Midland, TX 79702.

Robert F. Lindsay
Lindsay Consulting LLC
lindsayconsulting2016@gmail.com
(432) 889-0156

Robert C. Trentham
University of Texas at the Permian Basin
trentham_r@utpb.edu
(432) 557-8334