Goose Creek Oil Field

Discovered in 1903, and reaching maximum production in 1918 after a series of spectacular gushers, it was one of the fields that contributed to the Texas Oil Boom of the early 20th century.

[2][3] The Goose Creek field is also the first place where subsidence of overlying terrain was attributed to the removal of oil from underneath.

Subsidence-induced motion along faults on the field also caused the only earthquake of local origin ever felt in the Houston area.

The connection between extraction and subsidence was first recognized by geologists Wallace Everette Pratt and D.W. Johnson, who published their findings in a 1926 paper.

[8] Subsidence of land due to either oil or groundwater extraction is now widely recognized, and the Gulf Coast is one of many places in the world in which it has become a serious problem.

In the present day, oil fields underneath sensitive areas, such as cities, are usually re-pressurized with water or gas to prevent the land above them from collapsing into the vacated space.

Bubbles of methane gas coming up in the shallow water along the shoreline of Galveston Bay alerted early prospectors in 1903 to the possibility of an oil field in the area.

The subsequent fast influx of workers and equipment engendered a pair of boomtowns – Pelly and Goose Creek – adjacent to the field.

Along with title to the field and the various private parcels within it, the State sought to collect the revenues from oil and gas produced since the land went underwater.

The State lost the suit, with the court ruling that the subsidence was caused by the extraction of oil, and was therefore an "act of Man" rather than a natural event.

Not all of the subsidence in the field and adjacent areas is due to oil withdrawal; some is from pumping of groundwater from water wells.

Many of the major oil companies began divesting their onshore operations in the U.S. around this time, selling them to independents, as opportunities overseas became more attractive.