Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Avatar on December 14, 2009 at 10:55

There are copies of the original township surveys at the Louisiana Land Office website.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by FXEF on December 14, 2009 at 12:33

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_(United_States_land_surveying)

Google is your friend!!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bacon on December 14, 2009 at 12:38

One of the units we are in is 604 acres and another is 617. Gives a little bump to your interest I spose. Not sure if that's the size of the section or they made the unit smaller.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by adubu on December 14, 2009 at 14:18

In Texas Gas units can be as small as field spacing for formation drilled such as avg 40 acres spacing for vertical well for single vertical well to be drilled or as large as 640a. +or- 10% ---640 +64= 704a as standard unit so if 40a spacing can drill up to 19 wells in unit if all vertical if 20a spacing then 38 wells or if 80a then 8 wells in the unit, some H spacing as low as 80a spacing. There are some special rrc rules that allow larger units to merge together.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by The_Baron on December 15, 2009 at 5:10

Don't confuse unit size with spacing.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by The_Baron on December 15, 2009 at 5:13

A Section is ideally 640 acres.

However, the earth is curved, not flat. Section size will vary, esp near water bodies, and state lines.

The sections were laid out by Surveyors working for the us government, in most cases back in the 1800's (in LA). The State Land office has copies of the official survey plats. They will show the exact measurment of each section. These plats, along with the patent information will be in the parish courthouse as well.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on December 15, 2009 at 12:52

The Township section system is called PLSS, Public Land Survey System.

PLSS on Wikipedia

Sections vary only a little bit to account for the curvature of the Earth. The variations are mostly for errors made in the process of doing the surveys done way back when. Some sections got squeezed or stretched to match up with sections that were surveyed first.

There are also oddly shaped sections because of:

1) Geographical obstructions such as rivers or lakes that were difficult to survey.
2) Land grants or other land divisions that occurred before the Township system was used to survey the land.
3) State borders or other places where one "survey zone" meets another.

Texas doesn't use the Township survey system.

DNR deals in "units," not sections, but units usually match up with a section for Louisiana Haynesville shale production.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by NA on December 15, 2009 at 13:13

640 acres. Yes. Enter the section township range into the search at the following link http://1webfn.doa.la.gov/slodocs/SLO/hist_records.htm look at the maps and find the map of the original survey done on the section. In the top right corner of the map there will be a listing of the sections with their acreage amount.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by El Theo on December 15, 2009 at 15:38

It's not the size of your section.....it's the motion of your lateral.

;)

• ▶ Reply