In the heart of Los Angeles is one of the most popular and notable deposits of oil that bubbles to the surface as the La Brea Tar Pits. Like the city of the same name, Brea refers to the spanish word for natural asphalt or tar. The Land The land was part of a Mexican…
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon expressed frustration with U.S. officials over a natural gas claim outside Glacier National Park which has spent the last 30 years in limbo. The area, which is a wildlife habitat and considered sacred by local native American tribes , lead to calls for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Yet, three…
The California Oil Company Museum is an educational and historic site located in the Union Oil Building in Santa Paula, California. Displays span subjects from oil history, its uses, the development of oil drilling technology, and the companies that distributed it. The museum is open to the public with a suggested $4 donation per person….
We have added a new way to browse and explore leases: by Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Administrative Area. To give context to this new feature, we wrote this handy explanation. Summary Nearly a quarter of a billion acres – about one-eighth of the landmass of the USA – is administered by the BLM. These…
This entry focuses on a part of our earlier discussion, Understanding Location Data. For greater context on what we will be addressing, please read that post first. One of the more confusing aspects of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the concept of “townships.” A “township” can refer to two different things. Both are part of…
Claims handled by the Bureau of Land Management are not mapped by latitude and longitude, as many maps now use. Instead, many of these claims harken back to an older form of surveying called the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), a measurement system that may seem confusing to the uninitiated, but was a great step forward…
We are excited to have launched the Drillings! There is a lot of oil and gas drilling that occurs across the US. While much of this is occurring on public lands, few people are able to discover the “who,” “what,” and “where” of public oil drilling claims. While this is a matter of public record, we…
