From the site: "A cells polygon feature class was created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to illustrate the degree of exploration, type of production, and distribution of production in the United States. Each cell represents a quarter-mile square of the land surface, and the cells are coded to represent whether the wells included within the cell are predominantly oil-producing, gas-producing, both oil and gas-producing, or the type of production of the wells located within the cell is unknown or dry. The well information was initially retrieved from IHS Inc.'s PI/Dwights PLUS Well Data on CD-ROM, which is a proprietary, commercial database containing information for most oil and gas wells in the U.S. Cells were developed as a graphic solution to overcome the problem of displaying proprietary well data. No proprietary data are displayed or included in the cell maps. The data are current through 10/1/2005."
- HTMLhttp://catalog.data.gov/dataset/oil-and-gas-exploration-and-production-in-the-united-states-shown-as-quarter-mile-cells