McKittrick Oil Field the Teapot Dome Scandal of the Warren G. Harding administration; adjacent to the southwest is the Belgian Anticline Oil Field, along Route 58; and to the southeast is the huge Midway-Sunset Oil Field, the third largest oil field in the United States. The total productive area of the field is . The field is about long on the southeast to northwest axis, and about across. The predominant geologic feature, and the one that makes the McKittrick field distinctive, is the presence of a huge block of Monterey shale – more than long, approximately wide, and up to thick – which
History of the oil shale industry in the United States the boom in 1915, oil and oil shale were still locateable minerals under the General Mining Act of 1872. Any US citizen could stake a placer claim to reserve the mineral rights over 160 acres of oil-shale land. Congress changed the situation when it passed the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, which declared that oil and oil shale were no longer locateable minerals, but instead the rights to mine them had to be leased from the federal government. In September 1920, of the many oil shale companies being promoted, none were yet in commercial-scale operation, although five were said to