During the course of a geochemical exploration survey in West Texas, a well was monitored which was thought to leak at a depth of approximately 7600 feet, presumably due to a bad cement job around the well casing. A contaminant spot was found which was not symmetrical about the well bore and the compositional signature was uniquely related to the well itself, in particular it was identical to gases used in pressure testing the well. Here we noted a unique characteristic of reservoir leakage as opposed to spills or other surface related contamination. Reservoir leakage is characterized by increasing magnitudes with depth, whereas contamination due to spills is characterized by decreasing magnitudes with depth. (Pirkle and Drozd, American Chemical Society Meeting, St. Louis, MO, April, 1984; Robert J. Pirkle, Proceedings of the American Gas Association Meeting, Chicago, IL, April 1986).
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