Wellbore Formation Records
Queryable Fixed-width
Named geological formations and the depth each was encountered at.
Get the data
Free. You will be asked to confirm an email address before the files are built — that is the only gate, and it is there so we can tell you when a large export is ready.
What this is
Record type 04. One row per formation top recorded for a wellbore: the formation name as the operator wrote it and the depth in feet.
Two million rows of formation tops is a subsurface dataset most people assume they have to buy.
What you can do with it
Build a formation-top map for a play, correlate wells against each other, and find every well that penetrated a named interval.
Gotchas
Formation names are free text written by operators, not a controlled vocabulary. 'WOLFCAMP', 'WOLFCAMP A' and 'WFMP' all appear. Normalise before you aggregate.
Depths are measured depth from the elevation reference in the form dates record, not true vertical depth and not subsea.
Record layout
6 columns. Byte positions are 1-based and come from the RRC record layout, so you can check our decoding against the original file yourself.
wb_formations
6 columns
| # | Column | Type | Bytes | RRC name | Meaning | Lookup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
api_county
key
join
|
text | — | — | The three-digit county component of the API number. For offshore wells this is the nearest onshore county, not the well's actual location. | — |
| 2 |
api_unique
key
join
|
text | — | — | The five-digit well component of the API number. Unique only in combination with the county code. | — |
| 3 |
formation_cntr
key
|
smallint | 3-5 | WB-FORMATION-CNTR |
Sequence of this formation top within the bore. | — |
| 4 |
formation_name
|
text | 6-37 | WB-FORMATION-NAME |
Formation name as the operator wrote it. Spelling is not standardised. | — |
| 5 |
formation_depth
|
integer measured in ft | 38-42 | WB-FORMATION-DEPTH |
Depth to the top of the formation, feet. | — |
| 6 |
ingested_at
|
timestamptz | — | — | When the upstream pipeline last wrote this row. Not an RRC field — it is EZRRC's provenance stamp, and it is what the freshness badge is measured against. | — |
What this joins to
The Railroad Commission never states these keys anywhere in the files. They are the reason the data is hard to use, so here they are with the exact columns on both sides.
Wellbore Formation Records joins to Full Wellbore Database (ASCII) on API county and API unique — many rows here share a single row there.
the formations it penetrated
One row per formation top, with the depth it was encountered at. Keyed on the API county and unique number, which is how every record type in WBA091 hangs off its root record.
full-wellbore-ascii.api_county = wellbore-formations.api_county AND full-wellbore-ascii.api_unique = wellbore-formations.api_unique
Where this comes from
- Published by
- Texas Railroad Commission — the original page
- Original format
- Fixed-width Columns are byte ranges with no separators, described only in a scanned record layout.
- Update cadence
- Updated once a week (Weekly, with the wellbore database.)
- RRC download link
- GoAnywhere MFT
- Record layout manual
- Our table
texas.wb_formations
EZRRC is an independent mirror of public-domain data published by the Texas Railroad Commission. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the RRC. For any legal or regulatory purpose, verify against the official RRC release.