Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 45, Greencastle, Putnam County, 25 October 1984 — Page 3

Midwest oil bonanza? Mammoth rift valley beneath five states triggers speculation

By WALTER SULLIVAN c. 1984 N.Y. Times NEW YORK The discovery that a rift valley five miles deep, filled with a billion-year accumulation of sediment, lies beneath the rolling farm lands of the Middle West has sent ripples of excitement through the oil-prospecting community. Some specialists are speaking of possible oil reservoirs comparable to those of the North Sea. Such a reservoir would greatly increase American energy independence and would be free from the high costs and pollution risks of offshore oil exploitation. Last month, in a step that could provide the first direct evidence of the rift’s potential, Texaco Inc. began drilling a 13,000-foot test hole into the formation in Kansas, where a series of deep seismic surveys has revealed the depth of the rift. It is reported that about 150 agents of various oil companies are swarming over the region, buying lease rights from landowners, and that four geophysical companies are conducting surveys. The rift runs from western Lake Superior southwest along Minnesota’s boundary with Wisconsin, across lowa

Social Security benefits to increase 3 1 /2%

WASHINGTON <AP) - The Social Security checks that go to 36.1 million Americans will rise 3.5 percent in January, the government said today. The average retiree will get an extra sls a month; the average elderly couple $26. It is the second consecutive year benefits will rise by 3.5 percent the smallest since Social Security payments were linked to inflation in 1975. But when benefits go up, so does the maximum amount of earnings that Social Security taxes, and the government also announced today that the ceiling will be raised in 1985 from $37,800 to $39,600. Coupled with a previously scheduled increase in the Social Security tax rate from 6.7 percent to 7.05 percent, that means those workers face an increase of $259.20 to the new maximum tax of $2,791.80 in 1985. Their employers will see their taxes rise

Defendant? months pregnant

Murder verdict: Guilty, but mentally ill

CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) - An expectant mother found guilty of murder but mentally ill in the death of her alleged lover faces 30 to 60 years in prison. A Lake County jury found Sara B. Smith, 26, guilty Wednesday in the July 19 shooting death of Merrillville real estate developer Herbert Welch. Welch, 45, was shot 10 times with a .38caliber revolver as he sat in his office. Lake Superior Court Judge James L. Clement set sentencing for Nov. 15. Mrs. Smith, of Schererville, conceded she killed Welch, but said she was driven insane by her extramarital affair. She claimed Welch had coerced her into two sexual liaisons by threatening to withhold excavation work from her husband, Gary Smith, an independent contractor. Defense attorneys Frederick Work and Scott King of Gary said Smith frequently beat his wife, then divorced her and took custody of their three children and property because of the affair. Work implored the jury to “find Gary Smith guilty and I’m begging you to find Sara Smith not responsible.” Deputy Lake County Prosecutor Kathleen L. Burns reminded jurors that Gary Smith wasn’t on trial for murder or wife abuse. Evidence indicated Mrs. Smith admired her husband and refused to divorce him or press battery charges, despite

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by $145.80 at the top. The raises became official with the Labor Department’s release of its Consumer Price Index for September. The rise in Social Security benefits will match the inflation rate from the third quarter of 1983 to the third quarter of this year. Paying the extra benefits to the almost one in six Americans who receive the monthly checks retired or disabled workers and their relatives will cost Social Security’s trust funds $6.1 billion in the year ahead. Welfare checks for almost 4 million aged, blind or disabled poor people in the Supplemental Security Income program will go up by the same percentage at year’s end, at a cost of $205 million. Social Security spokesman James M. Brown said benefits will go up in January by:

pleas from her parents to do so. Two court-appointed psychiatrists concluded Mrs. Smith was insane the day of the shooting. She was found sane by a third, Dr. Robert Wettstein, who was hired by the Lake County prosecutor’s office. “She grew up in a loving home where family meant everything. That is important because when Gary Smith divorced her, that created a trauma she couldn’t deal with,” Work said. He added that Mrs. Smith first displayed mental illness when she jumped out of her husband’s moving truck in 1979 when he began talking about their divorce. They were remarried later that year. Work said Mrs. Smith was upset in 1981 by the death of her son, Adam, six hours after his birth. She would visit his grave in Schererville to talk with him and

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Another concern is whether, when lakes existed in the rift 1.1 billion years ago or earlier, life within them at so early a stage in evolution was abundant enough to result, long afterward, in oil formation. Nevertheless, oil occurs in the socalled Nonesuch shale, where the rift’s deep formations emerge flanking the west end of Lake Superior. Analysis of this oil has led to the conclusions that lake waters in the rift there were teeming with fungi and algae. In the White Pine Mine on Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula this shale contains enough oil to complicate extraction of the copper sulfide ore. A relatively optimistic evaluation of the rift potential has been presented in the Oil and Gas Journal by Carol Kindle Lee, an exploration geologist formerly with Kerr Associates in Denver, and S. Duff Kerr, founder of that firm of exploration consultants. Miss Lee is now working for her doctorate at Cornell University. Comparing the rift there to highly productive ones in Egypt, Libya, China and the Soviet Union, they have concluded that the extent of available production “may well be of giant

—sls a month to $449 for the average retired worker living alone. —s26 a month to $776 for the average elderly couple. —s2s a month to $728 for someone entitled to the maximum who retires this year at age 65. —s33 a month to S9BB for a mother with two children. —sl4 a month to $415 for an elderly widow. —sl6 a month to $473 for a disabled worker. —s3o a month to $893 for a disabled worker and family. The maximum SSI payment will rise by sll for an individual to $325 and by sl6 for a couple to S4BB. However, many also get Social Security and could wind up with lower SSI benefits, because the welfare checks are reduced when their other in-

sometimes spend the night, Work said. Testimony revealed Smith asked for a second divorce in early July after he was sued by Welch, who wanted $75,000 damages for a beating he received from Smith because of the affair. The pressure on Mrs. Smith was too much July 19, the day after the divorce, Work said. He said she rode with her husband to a bank and walked away while he was inside. Mrs. Smith testified she intended to commit suicide at her son’s grave when she saw Welch’s office and her mind snapped. Prosecutor Burns argued that Mrs. Smith had rationally decided earlier that morning to kill Welch because she felt his lawsuit caused her divorce. Ms. Burns quoted Mrs. Smith as telling police afterwards: “He deserved it. I

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proportion.” That something remarkable lay under the farmlands first became evident from gravity surveys. It was found, for example, that a highly precise pendulum clock runs faster in Minneapolis than in Chicago because gravity in Minneapolis is slightly stronger. This feature has been mapped from the Canadian border to Kansas as the MidContinent Gravity High. On magnetic maps the Mid-Continent Gravity High shows up as parallel zones of abnormally high and low magnetic intensity. It is now widely thought to mark where the continent began to split apart more than 1.1 billion years ago, creating a lake-filled rift valley like the far more recently formed ones in East Africa. Like the East African rifts of today, it appears that the midcontinent rift was then in tropical latitudes and therefore particularly hospitable to primitive life • Such lakes tend to be so deep that little dissolved oxygen reaches their bottom waters. As a result deceased organisms do not decay after sinking to the bottom, instead becoming embodied in the sediment as a potential source of oil.

come goes up. Also, by law, Social Security rounds all benefit increases down to the nearest dollar, so most people wind up with slightly less than the full percentage increase. Health and Human Services Secretary’ Margaret Heckler called the announcement “good news for Social Security beneficiaries." She announced these other changes that will take effect Jan. 1: —The maximum amount those ages 6569 can earn without losing benefits will rise from $6,960 to $7,320. —The maximum amount those under 65 can earn without penalty will go from $5,160 to $5,400. Those who earn more lose $1 in benefits for each $2 earned above those ceilings. There is no limit on earnings for those 70 or older.

wasn’t going to lose everything and he loses nothing. He’s going to pay.” Mrs. Smith, who is seven months pregnant, could be ordered to begin her sentence in a mental institution, with a provision she be transferred to prison to serve out the balance of her sentence if she is declared sane.

DECISION ’B4 Putnam County Republican Candidates, United Now... and in the future. VOTE REPUBLICAN NOV. 6

Thomas S. Gray Council At Large

William Grimes Myrtle Cockrell Treasurer Auditor

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Buffalo graze near Texaco's 13,000-foot test drill site in Washington County, Kansas. Some oil specialists are eyeing a mam-

Don K. Walton County Commissioner

Paid for by the Putnam County Republican Central Committee

October 25,1984, The Putnam County Banner-Graphic

moth rift beneath a portion of the Midwest as having possible oil reservoirs comparable to those of the North Sea. (N.Y. Times photo)

Ray H. French announces the opening of the Center Street Gallery (North side of DePauw's Asbury Hall, 1 block south of Ashley Square, between College and Vine.) Saturday, Oct. 27 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 28 1 to 5 p.m.

Robert W. Evans Council At Large

Dale W. Oliver Coroner

Gene Beck County Commissioner

Jack Waldron Council At Large

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