Seneca Oil Spring EarthCache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(not chosen)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This cache is located in a county park.
This Earthcache takes you to a spot in North America where prehistory, geology, culture and technology would meet in one quiet moment.
Seneca Oil Springs, located in what is now a small Seneca Reservation in the town of Cuba, NY, was then a tiny corner of the Iroquois Empire. The land was cleared in places for the fields and crops of the “Keepers of the Western Door” as the Senecas were called. The woodlands, filled with “ancient and noble” white oak, white pine and hemlock were carefully maintained through controlled burning of the underbrush, for the game that seemed limitless. The Senecas made use of other resources as well, as Joseph DeLaRoche D’Allion, a Franciscan missionary who traveled through this area in 1627, discovered when his guide took him to the oil spring. The oil was used for medicinal purposes as well as its flammable qualities.
Black gold, Texas tea…here was the first view of petroleum by a white man in North America. It would be 200 years before the drilling of the oil well in Titusville in Pennsylvania and the rush for oil in Allegany County.
Oil and its related product, gas, are formed in the earth where marine organisms once existed. Most geologists believe that incomplete decay of million of these creatures are the source of oil and gas. Compaction changed the surrounding sediments to mudstones and shales. The resulting heat and pressure probably produced bacterial processes and helped transform organisms into hydrocarbons – the compounds that make up oil and gas.
In this small park is a pool, fenced off by a wrought-iron fence. The cords listed will take you to its edge. In order to claim this Earthcache, you must have your picture taken at the spring and email the owner of the cache the following information:
1) Estimate the diameter of the pool you see and describe its appearance: what does it look like, what does it smell like, etc.
2) Speculate the reason why this spring exists when most wells are drilled.
3) Give your description of the commercial development of this area and why it is as it is.
Please do NOT throw any object or anything into the spring area!
There are some speculations as to the origins of oil and gas creation. Some debate over the "Squashed Fish" theory occured after traces of gas were found too deep (6km)to be formed by organisms' decay.
All logs that are posted before you receive an answer from the owner will be DELETED! Please wait for verification of your find. Unless I am traveling (rare) I check my emails EVERY day.
If I do not receive your answer within 48 hrs your log shall be deleted.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)