I do a lot of wilderness hiking. I am in Southern California, about 30 miles north of Los Angeles and 12 miles north of the Northridge Earthquake epicenter.

I hike in a place called Placerita Canyon. There is two mile trail through canyon terrain beginning around the "Oak of the Golden Dream."

Anyway, there is a natural oil well that actually spurts onto the trail at one point. There was some confusion as to whether this was a leak from an underground pipe or natural. Sufficient inquiry leads me to believe it is natural. There was an attempt to harness this well, as there is some ancient pipe and twisted mine cart tracks laying around. Modernly, there is no visible man made development surrounding this well.

What appears to be petroleum slogs and bubbles to the top of the soil. At the same time, natural gas is being emitted.

Of late, it has really taken off. Today, during one of my usual hikes, it was bubbling like crazy, with a considerable volumn of natural gas flowing out of it.

I'm willing to go back and do some further observation or shoot some photos. If there is an event in the near future, maybe there might be a correlation.

Tony