Well, I read the complaint filed to slow the Nevada sale. One of the complaints is that there were abandoned wells on the parcels, and they thought it unlikely that there was enough oil there to be worth drilling for...
I have worked wells in Nevada, and the geology changes drastically and abruptly, in relatively short distances, depending on where you are. In general, in the area I worked, there was a sheet of rock thrust over younger rock from 25 or more miles away, and then all of this was faulted into Basins and mountain ranges (Horst and Graben), and those Valleys filled with with volcanics and other sediments.
It is a fascinating and challenging area to work, but the science of doing oil exploration there is constantly changing, because things get overlooked or misinterpreted or a formation is inherently difficult to produce.
That said, Railroad Valley, has had nine oilfields, and a history that includes 47,000,000 barrels of production, from Oligocene Volcanics, Eocene Lake deposits, and Paleozoic limestones, sometimes from paleokarst features (old cave systems).
Odds are steep in NV, with about a 1 in 75 wildcat success rate, but when they 'hit', wells can be very good.
