JORDAN — Talk of a "mini Bakken" beneath this windswept plain has the 350 people of Jordan talking big.

"My daughter thinks we're going to be the next Williston," said Janet Sherer. "I hope not. I'm not ready for that."

Williston, the western North Dakota community at the heart of the Bakken oil boom has become the town to which everyone points when discussing a potential central Montana oil play. The North Dakota community was a quiet farm town until petroleum engineers cracked the combination to oil trapped in a shale formation thousands of feet below. The once seemingly played-out region now rivals Alaska's oil production. Locals fortunate enough to have coveted mineral rights are awash in royalties. The black gold rush is on.

Central Montanans from Lewistown to Jordan also have a seemingly played-out oil field. "The Heath" as it's called in these parts, is a shale formation 250 miles wide from east to west and 150 miles from north to south.

The land that caps the Heath is as empty as it is vast. Here, gravel roads stretch 60 miles or more without crossing asphalt. They must occasionally be shared with range cattle, though rarely with people and can go from concrete hard on a freezing morning to gumbo soft by afternoon. The latter transformation in winter is so common people plan their travels around the freeze and thaw.