THE HISTORY OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING
PART NINE - 1921

Chapter 22  -  The Geological Engineering Company

Early in the year 1921, the total of the $28,000 budget had been subscribed for the Geological Engineering Company. The largest money contribution had come from Frank Buttram with smaller amounts from Dr. Irving Perrine, former head of the Department of Geology at the University of Oklahoma; Dr. D. W. Ohern, former head of the Oklahoma Geological Survey; the Ramsay brothers and others. William Peter Haseman had contributed a lot of time and effort. His perseverance had brought the enterprise to a successful financial conclusion. Haseman also contributed some money. Eighty-five percent of the corporation stock went to Buttram, Perrine, the Ramsays, Ohern and Haseman. The remaining 15 percent was distributed among Karcher, Eckhardt and McCollum. Frank Buttram, prominent geologist and one of the most successful independent oil operators in the Mid-Continent, is still living in Oklahoma City.

The rest of the money required to begin operations was sent to Washington by the Geological Engineering Company. Karcher and Eckhardt had already designed the electrical seismograph instruments. Now, Dr. Karcher with some help from Dr. Eckhardt set about the procurement of component parts and the final construction and assembly of the apparatus. Karcher secured the services of a German instrument maker to aid in this assembly. The Karcher and McCollum joint patent applications, as per agreement, were assigmed to the Corporation. These patent applications were four in number, two relating to refractions and two to reflections.

By April, the equipment was sufficiently complete to make a preliminary survey in an abandoned rock quarry in Maryland, near the Potomac River. The result was the first recognizable seismic reflection record ever made. After some changes and a number of adjustments, the equipment was shipped by rail from Washington to Oklahoma City and received by Dr. Haseman the first part of May. Later in the month, Dr. Karcher, having secured a leave of absence from the Bureau of Standards, went to Oklahoma for what turned out to be six months of reflection and refraction shooting. Eckhardt and McCollum were left in Washington in a consulting and advisory capacity.

The first field tests in Oklahoma were made on June 4, 1921, in what was then the outskirts of Oklahoma City. The first observations were made in a stream bed about a mile and a quarter west of Belle Isle, in the northwest portion of the city. The first reflection field party intent on finding petroleum structure in the history of the world consisted of Dr. Karcher, observer; Dr. Haseman, shooter, with geologists Irving Perrine and William C. Kite, as helpers. The first refraction seismograph party had taken the field in Ireland in 1845 under the direction of Robert Mallet and had used the shores of Killiney Bay and of Dalkey Island as the location of its historie operations.

The experimental reflection work was continued almost daily throughout the month of June and into the early part of July in the vicinity of Oklahoma City. On June 16, 1921 a profile consisting of a series of seven shots placed at distances of 100 to 700 feet from the detector and at 100 feet intervals from each other were shot and records obtained. On June 17th another profile consisting of a series of shots spaced at 100 foot intervals, starting at 300 feet and extending to 1,000 feet from the detector, was shot. An accidental explosion happened in the first week of operations. Dr. Haseman closed the safety switch near the dynamite charge and started to walk to the detonating box; he caught his foot in a loose cable, tripped, and fell toward the shot hole. The jerk of the cable knocked over the detonator and closed the circuit. The blast went off only ten feet from where Haseman lay. Abandoning his camera, Karcher hurried toward his co-worker. The latter was busy prying bits of gravel from his face, otherwise he was unhurt. A better detonating machine was procured before operations resumed.

In mid-July, the seismic crew took its equipment to southern Oklahoma to shoot refractions in the Arbuckle Mountains. Karcher, Haseman and Perrine performed their same duties but William C. Kite's place was taken by Dr. D. W. Ohern. On July 14th, the velocity of the Hunton Limestone was determined to be 11,680 feet per second. On July 15th, the velocity of the Sylvan Shale was calculated as 5,780 feet per second. On July 15th and 16th; measurements on the Viola Limestone showed a speed of 14,070 feet per second.

The two doctors of physics, Karcher and Haseman; consulting together with the two doctors of geology, Perrine and Ohern, correctly surmised that because of the radical velocity change experienced between the Sylvan Shale and the Viola Limestone, that an interface between the two geological formations would make an ideal subsurface for obtaining sharp and usable reflections. Dr. Ohern, who knew the geology of the Arbuckle Mountains very well, stated that he could give the seismic party a location that would be ideal. Seven miles north of Dougherty, Oklahoma, and roughly halfway between Dougherty and the town of Sulphur in Murray County there was an area known as Vines Branch. At Vines Branch the Viola Limestone formed a dome. At the high point of the dome, the Sylvan Shale overlay the Viola Limestone as a relatively thin layer. From the crest. of the dome, the Viola plunged steeply to the east and the Sylvan thickened so as to fill in the space between the Viola and the surface of the ground.

A second microphone detector was added, together with the necessary cable to enable the recording of two traces in place of one on the photographic film. The time break, that is to say, the instant of explosion, was registered electrically on the photographic film together with 100 marks per second, so that the exact time elapse from the explosion to the reflection could be simply counted. Communication between shot point and recording location was maintained by telephone. The 100 marks per seeond put on the photographic film was accomplished by an electrically driven tuning forke. Although the individual elements making up the apparatus were crude, still the schematic arrangement of the equipment used in 1921 by Karcher and Haseman was essentially the schematie arrangement of reflection seismograph today.

Late in July, the modified equipment was ready for an attempt to define the Vines Branch Dome. This prospect was shot between July 22nd and the first of August. The equipment was then moved back to Oklahoma City, where Karcher and Haseman engaged in the interpretation of the Vines Branch seismic results. The interpretation was completed by August 9th. A geological cross-section of the depth of the Viola Limestone at Vines Branch was prepared from the reflection data. When this cross-section was presented to Perrine and Ohern, they were highly enthusiastic and departed at once for Ponca City, Oklahoma, to interview their personal friend, E. W. Marland, on the possibility of establishing a seismograph contract between the Geological Engineering Company and the Marland Refining Company.

With Ohern and Perrine gone, the seismic party was joined by still another geologist, Reginald G. Ryan, Dr. Ohern's nephew. During the remainder of the month of August, Karcher, Haseman and Ryan, carried on certain other experiments near Oklahoma City. In addition to the technical staff already mentioned on the various experimental prospects, there were three or four laborers employed to dig the shot holes with hand augers.

Late in August, Dr. Karcher prepared a copy of the Vines Braneh crosssection and had all the Vines Braneh reflection records photostated. This information he mailed to Dr. E. A. Eckhardt in Washington. Sometime in September, Eckhardt gave this material to Mr. Burton McCollum, who was to keep the data for twenty four hours and return it to Dr. Eckhardt. Instead, McCollum left on a long vacation, accumulated over a period of years, taking the Vines Branch data with him. In due course. Burton McCollum was to show up in Oklahoma, but we are getting ahead of our story.

In spite of the warm friendship between Irving Perrine and E. W. Marland, the meeting between the two men proved rather disappointing. Perrine and Ohern could not prevail upon Marland to sign a long contract underwriting the Geologieal Engineering Company venture into reflection seismograph shooting. This was out of character for Marland. He was usually highly enthusiastic about any technological development that was backed by a competent scientist, and ready to finance such an undertaking with alacrity. In this instance he had the word of a group of eminent scientists that the seismic method was on the threshold of being able to delineate subsurface structure, yet Marland remained cautious.

Perrine returned to Oklahoma City, where he had the duty of breaking th news to Karcher and Haseman that the best he could do with the Marland Refining Company was a promise to underwrite just the bare cost of operating the reflection crew for a period of two months in the area around Ponca City. Since Haseman and Karcher had no alternative course in mind, they accepted the challenge and rnoved the party to Ponca City on September 1, 1921. In the light of our present seismological knowledge, we know that the area around Ponca City is one of the tougher areas in which to obtain good reflections, even today.

The geological prospects that the seismograph party were to work around Ponca City were to be selected by two geologists, Park "Spot" Geyer, Chief Geologist for Marland, and his assistant, Fritz L. Aurin. From September 1st to 13th, the party worked the Newkirk anticline; from September 13th to October 14th, the prospect was Township 25 North, Range 4 West; from October 14t to 18th on the South Ponca field; in the Kildare area from October 18th to 26th, and on the Deer Creek structure from October 26th to November 1st. Reginald Ryan left the party in September and was replaced by Paul Johnson.

Late in October another meeting took place between E. W. Marland and several members of the Geological Engineering Company. The contract price offered by Marland for continued operations of the seismograph party was somewhat better than for the original two months contract work but was still inadequate. Furthermore, he wanted an exclusive contract. The Geological Engineering Company reluctantly turned down the new offer. Exactly four years later Marland was to authorize "Spot" Geyer to offer J. C. Karcher a huge salary to come to work for the Marland Oil Company. By 1925, the whole geophysical climate had changed and Karcher could not be had at any salary. Dr. Karcher, having devoted the greater part of the year 1921 to the project and seeing no future to it, packed up and returned to his job with the Bureau of Standards.

E. W. Marland, when presented the Viola Limestone cross-section on the Vines Branch Dome in August of 1921, was only mildly impressed. When Burton McCollum was given the same data in September, he reacted like a bolt of lightning had struck hirn. Apparently, then and there, he decided that seismic exploration was to be his life work. Certainly he had made that decision before 1921 was over. On October 15, 1921, Burton McCollum met with Dr. D. W. Ohern in Ponca City, who brought him out to the field where Karcher, Haseman and Johnson were operating.

Mr. McCollum was shown the manner in which Karcher and Haseman obtained reflection records. He was given a run-through of all the records so far shot by the Geological Engineering Company. McCollum was advised of the various modifications in the technique worked out by Karcher and Haseman, such as the digging of deeper shot holes and covering the dynamite charge with water to increase the efficiency of the shot. After Dr. Karcher had departed for Washington, Burton McCollum asked Dr. Haseman if he would shoot for him for a few days, while he tried various experiments. During the first part of November, 1921, the Geological Engineering Company continued to function near Ponca City but this time with McCollum, Haseman and Johnson. McCollum departed for Washington in mid-November. Before he left he extracted a promise from Dr. Haseman to join him in the spring of 1922 for additional seismic work in the region of Ponca City.

An audit of the accounts of the Geological Engineering Company in January, 1922, revealed that there was little remaining of the original $28,000 that had been subscribed. The Corporation had paid a salary to both Haseman and Karcher for six months and together with numerous other expenses had depleted the treasury almost out of existence. McCollum, Haseman and Johnson did about three months additional experimental work in the Ponca City area in the spring of 1922 in the hope of securing a profitable contract but their hopes were in vain. No salaries had been paid and the Geological. Engineering Company was several thousands of dollars in debt. Burton McCollum agreed that he would pay the back salaries, meet the outstanding bills and settle matters with all the creditors, provided that he be given the seismograph apparatus and equipment and that the corporation reassign to him sole ownership of the joint Karcher-McCollum patents. This the Geological Engineering Corporation agreed to do; only too glad to have someone take over the liquidation of the Corporation in exchange for its assets. They were valuable assets but no one but Burton McCollum seemed to be aware of that fact.

Paul Johnson was paid his three months salary and instructed to take the recording truck into Oklahoma City and leave it at Dr. Haseman's house. Haseman then turned over said instrument truck and the Karcher instruments it contained to McCollum. It was early summer of 1922.