Dipmeter analyses performed within McAllen Ranch field, Hidalgo County, South Texas, proved useful in finding reserves of natural gas. McAllen Ranch field produces from the Oligocene Vicksburg Formation on the downthrown, east block of a listric growth fault that merges with a flatlying glide plane beneath the field. This study concentrated on the Vicksburg S reservoir in a 5-mi2 (13-km2) area of the field (the B area), where a dense array of 15 dipmeter logs and a three-dimensional seismic survey were available.

There was a consensus that technology has in the past reduced, and will continue in the future to reduce, exploration and production costs. In the United States, for example, rigorous application of technology has resulted in the last decade or so in essentially flat supply cost projections. The relatively stable supply costs are due to technology and its impact in reducing production costs (William L. Fisher, "The U.S. Experience in Natural Gas: Revitalization of a Resource Base Thought Exhausted, this volume).

Initiation of diapirs is one of the least understood aspects of salt tectonics. Sedimentary differential loading and erosion are both effective, but not universal, causes of diapir initiation. A survey of 18 major salt-diapir provinces shows that salt upwelling is closely linked in time and space to regional extension. Extended salt basins typically develop salt structures, whereas nonextended basins do not.