Elk Hills Oil Field, CA Click Image to Enlarge  (JPG) (509,671 bytes) ( 1,943 x 1,270 )

The Elk Hills Oil Field (formerly the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1) is a large oil field in northwestern Kern County, in the Elk Hills of the San Joaquin Valley, California about 32 km west of Bakersfield. Discovered in 1911, and having a cumulative production of close to 1.3 billion barrels of oil at the end of 2006, it is the fifth-largest oil field in California, and the seventh-most productive field in the United States. Its estimated remaining reserves, as of the end of 2006, were around 107 million barrels and it had 2,387 active oil-producing wells. The dusty Elk Hills have a prominent role in U.S. political history, for it was the lease of this land by Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, to Pan American Petroleum in 1922 in return for personal loans at no interest, that brought on the Teapot Dome scandal which ruined the reputation of the administration of Warren G. Harding. The field owes its existence to the nearby San Andreas Fault. While best known for triggering earthquakes, the same forces that created the fault also folded the nearby rocks to form oil traps. The image was acquired on May 12, 2007, covers an area of 29.1 x 19 km, and is located at 35.3 degrees north latitude, 119.4 degrees west longitude.