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Heavy-Oil And Bitumen Resources Of The Big Clifty Sandstone, Northeastern Grayson County And Adjacent Hardin County, Kentucky, J. Richard Bowersox

Report of Investigations--KGS

Rock asphalt (bitumen-saturated sandstone) was produced from the Big Clifty Sandstone near Tar Hill and Big Clifty in northeastern Grayson County, and at Summit in adjacent Hardin County, from 1889 to 1940. Noncommercial amounts of oil were distilled from Big Clifty rock asphalt before 1930. Resource assessments conducted throughout the area during the mid-1920's described substantial rock-asphalt deposits. Later assessments in 1951, 1965, and the early 1980's, however, overlooked the northeastern Grayson County area. A new evaluation in 2015 estimated that the historically developed area between Clifty Creek and meeting Creek, and between the Summit Fault and Eveleigh Fault Zone, …