Things You Will Need
This research includes consulting a geophysicist to conduct non-invasive survey to detect water, gas, and oil wells below the earth's surface, and soliciting oral histories from long time residents who boader your land about local well development.
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Search the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) at the National Atlas of the United States online for a legal land description complete with all water, oil, and gas well records as designated within each state and county.
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Search the United States Geological Survey (USGS) at for water, gas, and oil well maps on or near your land, listed by state and county.
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Search municipal and township offices and local libraries for documentation that may give further clues as to the location of producing wells such as: building permits, old land deeds, property surveys, land transfer documents, as well as both current and historical aerial photographs.
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Walk your entire property and investigate for likely places that a well may exist such as: residences, dwellings, barns, livestock feeding sites and fields with irrigation as well sites are likely to be located close to the area of intended use.
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Draw a sketch on a map of the property identifying all potential well sites which include: abandoned houses, windmill sites, outbuildings, pump houses, barns, old foundations, piles of wood or other debris, silos, feeding pens, watering troughs, .
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Physically check all uncultivated areas such as grassy or treed areas near actively cropped areas as it may be an old water, gas, or oil well site.
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Look for evidence and debris of an old well such as: old hand pumps; piles or rock and clay; steel casings, electrical switch boxes; pump motors; rings of concrete, bricks, or wood; buried piping as evidenced by pipes sticking up out of the ground; abnormal depressions in the ground; or aquatic vegetation.
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Consult a geophysicist to perform three non-invasive geophysical surveys; an electromagnetic survey, and a magnetic and ground penetrating radar survey, to locate oil and gas deposits beneath the earth's surface which indicate the presence of a oil or gas producing well, without having to excavate.
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Talk to long time neighbors that border your land for oral histories of preexisting wells that may not be documented.
