Fresno County, officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most populous city in California.
Coalinga is a city in Fresno County and the western San Joaquin Valley, in central California about 80 miles southeast of the Salinas.
The San Joaquin Valley is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven counties of Northern and one of Southern California, including, in the north, all of San Joaquin and Kings counties, most of Stanislaus, Merced, and Fresno counties, and parts of Madera and Tulare counties, along with a majority of Kern County, in Southern California. Although the valley is predominantly rural, it has densely populated urban centers: Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, Modesto, Tulare, Visalia, Hanford, and Merced.
Reuben Carlton "Carl" Baker, Sr. was an American oil industry drilling pioneer. He established Baker Oil Tools in 1907 after developing a casing shoe that revolutionized cable tool drilling. In 1903, he introduced the offset bit for cable tool drilling to enable casing wells in hard rock and in 1912 the cement retainer that allowed casing to be cemented in the wells. Baker further improved the process with the float shoe in 1923. Having only a third grade education, he obtained more than 150 patents on oil drilling tools. Baker Oil Tools merged with Hughes Tool Company in 1987 to form Baker Hughes Incorporated.
Central California is generally thought of as the middle third of the state, north of Southern California, which includes Los Angeles, and south of Northern California, which includes San Francisco. It includes the northern portion of the San Joaquin Valley, part of the Central Coast, the central hills of the California Coast Ranges and the foothills and mountain areas of the central Sierra Nevada.
State Route 33 is a north–south state highway in the U.S. state of California. It runs north from U.S. Route 101 in Ventura through the Transverse Ranges and the western side of the San Joaquin Valley to Interstate 5 at a point east of Tracy. SR 33 replaced part of U.S. Route 399 in 1964 during the "great renumbering" of routes. In the unincorporated sections of Kern County it is known as the West Side Highway. In addition, the California Legislature designated the entire Kern County portion as the Petroleum Highway in 2004. The southernmost portion in Ventura is a freeway known as the Ojai Freeway, while it is known as the Maricopa Highway from Ojai to Maricopa.
State Route 198 is an east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from U.S. Route 101 south of King City to Sequoia National Park. It connects the California Central Coast to the mid–Central Valley through Hanford and Visalia, although the most developed portion is in the Central Valley itself. SR 198 intersects the major north–south routes in the Central Valley, including Interstate 5 (I-5), SR 33, and SR 99.
The Coalinga Oil Field is a large oil field in western Fresno County, California, in the United States. It surrounds the town of Coalinga, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, to the west of Interstate 5, at the foot of the Diablo Range. Discovered in the late 19th century, it became active around 1890, and is now the eighth-largest oil field in California, with reserves totaling approximately 58 million barrels (9,200,000 m3), and over 1,600 active oil wells. The principal operators on the field, as of 2008, were Chevron Corp. and Aera Energy LLC.
The Lost Hills Oil Field is a large oil field in the Lost Hills Range, north of the town of Lost Hills in western Kern County, California, in the United States.
The Kettleman North Dome Oil Field is a large oil and gas field in Kings and Fresno counties, California. Discovered in 1928, it is the fifteenth largest field in the state by total ultimate oil recovery, and of the top twenty oil fields, it is the closest to exhaustion, with less than one-half of one percent of its original oil remaining in place.
The 1983 Coalinga earthquake struck at 4:42 p.m. Monday, May 2 of that year, in Coalinga, California.
Max H. Whittier (1867–1925) was an American real estate developer and a pioneer in the early California petroleum industry.
Los Gatos Creek formerly known as Arroyo Pasajero or Arroyo Poso de Chane, is a creek in Fresno County, California. Its source is in the north end of Garcia Canyon in the Diablo Range near Benito Pass. From there it runs through Los Gatos Canyon, in the eastern foothills of the Diablo Range, then passes across Pleasant Valley, north of Coalinga, where Warthan Creek joins it east of the town. Then it flows eastward to its confluence with Jacalitos Creek, before it passes to the north of the Guijarral Hills, into the San Joaquin Valley, where it is joined by Zapato Chino Creek.
Oil City is an unincorporated community in Kern County, California, about 5 miles (8 km) northeast of Bakersfield, adjacent to the Kern River Oil Field.
The Vaqueros Formation is a sedimentary geologic unit primarily of Upper Oligocene and Lower Miocene age, which is widespread on the California coast and coastal ranges in approximately the southern half of the state. It is predominantly a medium-grained sandstone unit, deposited in a shallow marine environment. Because of its high porosity and nearness to petroleum source rocks, in many places it is an oil-bearing unit, wherever it has been configured into structural or stratigraphic traps by folding and faulting. Being resistant to erosion, it forms dramatic outcrops in the coastal mountains. Its color ranges from grayish-green to light gray when freshly broken, and it weathers to a light brown or buff color.
The Guijarral Hills Oil Field is a formerly-productive oil and gas field near Coalinga on the western side of the Central Valley in central California in the United States. Discovered in 1948, and having produced 5.4 million barrels (860,000 m3) of oil during its peak year in 1950, it now has but one active oil well producing a little over a barrel of oil a day, and is very near to exhaustion, with only 343,000 recoverable barrels of oil remaining throughout its 2,515-acre (10.18 km2) extent according to the official California State Department of Conservation estimate. As of 2010, the only active operator was Longview Production Company.
The Anticline Ridge is a ridge, southeast of Joaquin Ridge, declining from its 3,629 foot / 1,106 meter high point, Black Mountain in the north at 36°18′16″N120°24′12″W, to the southeast into low hills bound on the southeast by Los Gatos Creek that divides it from the Guijarral Hills. It is located in the inner California Coast Ranges, in Fresno County, California, east of the town of Coalinga. Anticline Ridge and Guijarral Hills divides Pleasant Valley from the San Joaquin Valley to the east. California State routes 33 and 198, which join together for the stretch through and north of Coalinga, cut across the Coalinga field and cross Anticline Ridge.
Zapato Chino Creek formerly known both as Arroyo de Las Polvarduras and Arroyo de Zapata Chino, is a creek in Fresno County, California. Its source is in Zapato Chino Canyon on the east slope of Mustang Peak in the Diablo Range. From there it runs northwest through Zapato Chino Canyon, in the Krayenhagen Hills, then passed across Pleasant Valley to the Guijarral Hills, then east through the Polvadero Gap, then runs northeast to its confluence with Los Gatos Creek. It usually dissipates in the San Joaquin Valley, 11 miles east of Coalinga. However it reaches Los Gatos Creek in years of heavy rainfall.
Aguaje de Pedro Etchegoen was an aguaje, a little to the west of El Camino Viejo eight miles north of Poso de Chane where Pedro Etchegoen later established his sheep ranch. It was the only reliable watering place between the Poso and Cantua Creek. The Etchegoen or Etchegoin Ranch remained in the hands of his family up until the time of the Fresno oil boom. A Fresno Township map of 1907 shows it in the hands of William Etchegoen.
The Great Valley Sequence of California is a 40,000-foot (12 km)-thick group of related geologic formations that are Late Jurassic through Cretaceous in age on the geologic time scale. These sedimentary rocks were deposited during the late Mesozoic Era in an ancient seaway that corresponds roughly to the outline of the modern Great Valley of California.
