Oil and Gas Seeps of the Puale Bay - Becharof Lake - Wide Bay Region, Northern Alaska Peninsula

The east side of the northern Alaska Peninsula near Puale Bay and the Iniskin Peninsula of Lower Cook Inlet have long held interest to exploration geologists due to their well developed oil and gas seeps, which spurred on the first active exploration and drilling efforts for petroleum in Alaska. Several oil rushes occurred in the early part of 20th century, primarily in two phases (1902-1905 and 1922-1926) in the area of Puale Bay and Becharof Lake. Unfortunately all of these wells produced only traces of hydrocarbons. Several subsequent deeper wells were drilled in Mesozoic strata of this region and nearby Wide Bay to the south, but like the earlier efforts, did not prove to be economical. Each oil and gas seep from this region is plotted on the map accompanying this report and their coordinates are listed in a table. Original published information concerning the seeps is reproduced. In addition, a single prominent solid hydrocarbon locality cited in the early literature is also discussed. Geochemical data is given for some of the seeps.