Cliffside Gas Field is located in the

Texas Panhandle The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a square-shaped area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east. It is adjacent to ...

bearing west of Texas Highway 87 and northwest of

Amarillo, Texas Amarillo ( ; Spanish for "yellow") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Potter County. It is the 14th-most populous city in Texas and the largest city in the Texas Panhandle. A portion of the city extends into Randall County ...

. The

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

Panhandle area is located in

Potter County, Texas Potter County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 118,525. Its county seat is Amarillo. The county was created in 1876 and organized in 1887. It is named for Robert Potter, a politician, si ...

within the vicinity of the unincorporated community

Cliffside, Texas Cliffside is an unincorporated community in Potter County, located in the U.S. state of Texas. History Prior to the community's existence, the Fort Worth and Denver Railway opened a station here in 1888. The first schoolhouse opened in 1905, wi ...

. The Potter County

oil and gas reservoir A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

was permitted for

fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels m ...

exploration in May 1925. The Panhandle basin was nationally recognized as a helium reserve with an estimated of discovered

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

at the Cliffside field.

Amarillo Helium Plant

In April 1929, the United States government purchased for a helium extraction plant located in west Amarillo within the unincorporated community of Soncy, Texas. By August 1929, the Texas Panhandle helium plant received notable commendations from national news sources regarding the plants estimated helium gas production yields. The Amarillo plant operated from 1929 to 1943 producing helium meeting the global demand for the

monatomic gas In physics and chemistry, "monatomic" is a combination of the words "mono" and "atomic", and means "single atom". It is usually applied to gases: a monatomic gas is a gas in which atoms are not bound to each other. Examples at standard conditions ...

. In 1968, the helium industry celebrated a

centennial {{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation) A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years. Notable events Notable centennial events at a ...

claiming Potter County, Texas as the "Helium Capital of the World."

First Helium Reservoir in North Texas

The Petrolia Oil Field was located northeast of

Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the seat of government of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita counties. Accordin ...

. The oil and gas reservoir was the primary helium source for the United States during the 1910s and at the commencement of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. By 1921, the

North Texas North Texas (also commonly called North Central Texas) is a term used primarily by residents of Dallas, Fort Worth, and surrounding areas to describe much of the north central portion of the U.S. state of Texas. Residents of the Dallas–Fort Wor ...

natural gas field was estimated as near

gas depletion Gas depletion is the decline in natural gas production of a well, gas field, or geographic area. Depletion rate According to the US Energy Information Administration, in 1980 the world had enough proved gas reserves to last 48 years at the 198 ...

exceeding the Petrolia helium

reserves-to-production ratio The reserves-to-production ratio (RPR or R/P) is the remaining amount of a non-renewable resource, expressed in time. While applicable to all natural resources, the RPR is most commonly applied to fossil fuels, particularly petroleum and natural gas ...

yields.

References

Historical Video Archive

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External links

* * * * * * {{Portal bar, 1920s, Aviation, Chemistry, Energy, Physics, Texas, Transport 1910 in Texas Economy of Amarillo, Texas Geography of Potter County, Texas Oil fields in Texas Potter County, Texas

Amarillo Helium Plant

First Helium Reservoir in North Texas

See also

References

Historical Video Archive

External links