The testing of the #1 Woodruff, the first commercial oil well drilled in Mississippi (discovery well for the 230 MMBO Tinsley Field), in 1939 (photo by Frank Noone).

Portion of diamond core cut across the upper Brown Dense Limestone of the Smackover Formation, in Columbia County, Arkansas.

Pre-loess porphyritic rhyolite cobble clast exhibiting typical flow-banding structures. The phenochrysts visible in this specimen have been badly weathered resulting in pitting on the outer surfaces. The presence of unusual clasts like this can help differentiate the Pre-loess Terrace Deposits of the ancestral Mississippi River from the Pliocene Terrace Deposits in Southwest Mississippi. This specimen is from Clear Creek, a tributary of the Big Black River in Warren County, near the town of Bovina.

Portion of a diamond core cut just below the basal Smackover / Top Eagle Mills Unconformity, atop a large basement horst block, in western Washington County, Mississippi. The Norphlet is inferred to be absent in this area. The Eagle Mills facies is a granite wash sourced from both the local basement structure (large cobbles) and adjacent eroded Jurassic paleohighs (smaller, rounded pebbles, sandstones and silt).

A set of wet samples waiting to be picked up and analyzed by a local wellsite geologist.

Portion of a diamond core cut from the Lower Cretaceous Sunniland Formation, near the Raccoon Point Field, in Collier County, South Florida.

A rig.

Remains of the archaeocete whale, Basilosaurus cetoides, from the Yazoo Formation from Scott County, Mississippi.

Indian Paint Pot concretions filled with bright red hematite pigment, from the Tuscaloosa outcrop in Monroe County, Mississippi.

Cross-bedded ooids seen in a diamond core taken from an oomoldic Smackover reservoir, western Washington County, Alabama.

Hydro-silica cemented sandstone exhibiting rare opalescence from the Miocene age upper Catahoula Formation of Claiborne County.

Hydro-silica cemented sandstone exhibiting rare opalescence from the Miocene age upper Catahoula Formation of Claiborne County.

Hydro-silica cemented sandstone exhibiting rare opalescence from the Miocene age upper Catahoula Formation of Claiborne County.

Rapad Rig at Bolton Field.

Challenger Workover Rig.

Roberts Pumpjack.

Eolian cross-bedding seen in a diamond core slab taken from an 800' thick Norphlet "seif" (linear) dune in Southeast Mississippi.

Casing of a previously-plugged well, "dressed off" and prepared for tie-back and re-entry.

Portion (right half) of a diamond core cut through a crevasse splay deposit in the Lower Tuscaloosa "A" Sand, Smithdale Field area, Southwest Mississippi. Note the "flotsam" - bits of wood and carbonaceous material - that settled to the bottom of the quiet water within the splay. Some oil staining is also evident (middle).

Styolite seen in cross-section as cut by a diamond core taken from a micritic reservoir in the Upper Smackover, from southeastern Clarke County, Mississippi. A fossil is also evident in the upper left-hand corner of this image.

Photo of gastropod in core cut in Upper Smackover, Baldwin County, Alabama.

Core slab photograph of the pelecypod-rich "A" interval of the Lower Smackover Brown Dense Lime (South Arkansas).

Pumping away in South Mississippi.

Workover Rig.

Oomoldic Core.

Oomoldic Core.

H&P Rig 136.

Oomoldic core.

Core from Pruet Oil Co.

Pump jack.

Smackover Ooids.

Tuscaloosa Marine Shale Core.

Chalk cuttings from a canyon in the Tallahatta Formation.