Opuntia Kleiniae or Opuntia leptocaulis This post was edited by lola-lemon on Wed, Feb 27, 13 at 3:45

Wow - wish I had a drive to work with scenery like yours. I wouldn't mind coming to work near as much. Beautiful photos.

Another oil producing activity can cause small earthquakes and that is "water drives". It does similar things to the deep earth structure, but may not as severe as fracking. However, water drives continue over a long period of time. Waste liquid from producing wells is forced down a spent well or wells at the edge of an oil dome forcing flow through the strata toward the upper part of the oil dome. This drives the remaining oil toward the producing wells and gets rid of the crappy liquid left over from a producing well. The waste water is supposed to be put back into the oil bearing strata from whence it came, but I suspect there are instances where it goes elsewhere. Water from an oil well is filled with noxious crud and will ruin water wells if it escapes into the aquifer supplying these wells.

perhaps a hackberry of some sort? There were NO growths/bumps on the trunk- very much looked like a birch, but afaik, those don't grow this far south.