engineering

Oil Spring

Oil Spring is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Oil Spring rather than just read about it. In short: Oil Spring is a historic site near Cañon City, Colorado that was a shallow oil seep where the first commercial oil production took place in Colorado. Primarily active from 1860 to 1881, it produced one to three barrels of oil per day at its peak.

Key takeaways

Oil Spring belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Oil Spring to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Oil Spring from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Oil Spring is a historic site near Cañon City, Colorado that was a shallow oil seep where the first commercial oil production took place in Colorado. Primarily active from 1860 to 1881, it produced one to three barrels of oil per day at its peak. Alternatively known as Oil Spring Claim on Four Mile Creek, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. A 160-acre (0.65 km2) property including Oil Spring was claimed by Gabriel Bowen on September 3, 1860, although research by Donald Kupfer noted that there were spurious, competitive claims about first discovery. Bowen intended to exploit the oil to form Colorado's first oil company, G Bowen & Co.. This was only one year after the first commercial oil well in the United States, the Drake Well in Pennsylvania, was drilled. The spring was only viable for twenty years once the Florence Oil Field was discovered and began operation. The NRHP-listed property is just a 2.6 acres (1.1 ha) portion of Bowen's original 160 acre claim.

Donald H. Kupfer Donald H. Kupfer (Oct. 4, 1918 -Nov. 20, 2010) was instrumental in creating increasing recognition of the Oil Spring site and conducted some of the oil samples to establish the history. He was a geology professor at Louisiana State University for 25 years. He was recipient of various honors for his accomplishments: among other honors he was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science American Association for the Advancement of Science, the 1974 recipient of the Leverson Award of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the 1997 Outstanding Educator Award of the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies. He was married to another geologist, Romaine (Littlefield) Kupfer, and, after his retirement in 1980, they moved together to Canon Springs in 1983. Kupfer died in 2010 in Powell, Wyoming at age 92.

See also National Register of Historic Places listings in Colorado

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Oil Spring

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Oil Spring claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Oil Spring before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Oil Spring ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Oil Spring

In research: Oil Spring appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Oil Spring in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Oil Spring is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 1862, Colorado Registered Historic Place stubs, National Register of Historic Places in Fremont County, Colorado, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Oil Spring outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Oil Spring in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Oil Spring means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Oil Spring out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Oil Spring in simple terms?

Why does Oil Spring matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Oil Spring?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Oil Spring.