THE HISTORY OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING
PART TEN - MARLAND AND MINTROP

Chapter 24  -  Marland and Earth Science

Although E. W. Marland would in a few years form the MarIand Oil Company of Oklahoma, the Marland Oil Company of Texas, the Mariand Oil Company of Colorado, the Marland Oil Company of California, the Marland Oil Company of Mexico, plus various other branches of his oil empire; at the time he became enthusiastic about the science and art of geology he was still operating under the one corporate entity of the Marland Refining Company.

Ernest Marland owned a block of leases west of Perry that he wanted to sell. A potential buyer asked for a geological report on the property. Marland exclaimed to his Vice President, Jack K. Clary, "I don't know any geologists." Mr. Clary did. Dr. Irving Perrine, the head of the Department of Geology at the University of Oklahoma, had been a classmate of Clary during their undergraduate days at Cornell University. Clary arranged for Perrine to come to Ponca City for a week-end to meet Marland. This was in November, 1912.

Perrine liked to talk geology and he found Marland an eager listener. On the first week-end neither Marland nor Perrine got much sleep. They talked for the greater part of every night they came together. The informal lectures delivered by Dr. Perrine were on the fundamentals of geology. For the next three years, Perrine worked for the Marland Refining Company on a consulting basis. He made frequent trips to Ponca, City on week-ends to join Marland in walking excursions. Intimates have proclaimed that Marland and Perrine walked the length of every road in Kay County. E. W. Marland wanted to be shown on the ground what Perrine had been talking about in their allnight geologic sessions.

In November of 1914, Marland asked Perrine to work out the geology of a region south of Perry. Dr. Perrine's assistant on this surface survey was Mr. L. E. Trout. This activity might be termed the beginning of the Marland Geological Department. The spring of 1915 found Perrine, Trout and W. C. Kite working out structural mapping near Morrison and near Hardy.

E. W. Marland, in a characteristic gesture, told Dr. Perrine to bring as many of his geology students as wanted to come to work out of the Ponca City office:

"I will pay them weIl. I want them to have the benefits of working here in the field -- to learn from the best teacher, the earth," Marland said.

Of the fifteen students who accepted this invitation, two of them,  W. C. Kite and F. P. "Spot" Geyer, were to successively occupy the position of Chief Geologist for the Marland Companies. MarIand liked youth and he proved it by appointing Kite to the job of Chief Geologist while he still lacked a year of graduation. By 1916, the Marland Refining Company was producing from three oilfields, Ponca, Newkirk and Blackwell. The Garber field was added in 1917 and somewhat later the Billings field. In 1918, there was a general reorganization of the Geological Department. W. C. Kite went back to Norman to finish his degree in geology. Marland secured the services of F. P. Geyer as Chief Geologist and of Fritz L. Aurin as his assistant.

Fritz L. Aurin later headed a very unique Marland subsidiary, the Southland Royalty Company. How typical it was of Ernest Marland to do more for his employees than just pay them high salaries. He bought a bank in Ponca City so that he could loan Marland people money at only 6% interest, when standard rates in local banks were 8% and 10%. He introduced free medical and dental care for his employees. Marland discovered that one of his lease men was selling oil and gas leases to outsiders. When he talked to the man and found out the extra money was needed for his siek wife, Marland raised the man's salary instead of firing him. The biggest blessing that Marland wished on the key members of his technical staff was to allow them to participate in the Southland Royalty Company; which company bought mineral rights and royalties on good looking petroleum properties. A few large oil companies allowed their employees to buy royalties or participate in a royalty buying plan in the 1920s. This practice was to be largely abandoned by the mid-1930s. The Southland Royalty Company is a vigorous and thriving company today, although no longer in Oklahoma, having shifted its headquarters to Fort Worth many years back.

In 1919, when the Osage Nation was opened for competitive oil and gas lease bids, Marland sat under the famous elm tree in the town of Pawhuska and bid right along with the major oil companies for choice pieces. In a number of instances, E. W. outbid the big companies. He gained an impressive number of quarter sections of favorable oil land but he also stripped his company’s treasury of practically all of its cash reserve. When the post-war depression and bad times of 1920-1921 came along, Marland was hard-up for money. That circumstance may partially explain why no remunerative contract was forthcoming from the Marland Refining Company when the Geological Engineering Company was seeking so desperately to establish itself with such a connection. Marland was periodically hard-up in spite of the general air of everincreasing prosperity.

In 1920, Marland sent his Vice-President, Jack Clary, to Tulsa to raise weIl-drilling money on a proposition called a "ten weIl program." A subscriber to any weIl had the right to come in on any subsequent weIl in the program. Under this program, which was favorably received by Tulsa capital, the Burbank field was brought in before the end of 1920. The sixth weIl of the project found the Tonkawa oilfield, which was the beginning of the real Marland fortune. The eighth weIl discovered the Thomas field, northwest of Tonkawa. Marland proceeded to seIl off $250,000 worth of acreage around the Thomas pool. He often sold acreage to finance his next venture. By 1923, the Marland empire building was in full stride and expanding in all directions.

In 1921, the Geological Department launched a core drilling campaign, and by 1922, had expanded it to major proportions. Mr. Dugan was in charge of these operations with the title of Superintendent of Core Drills. Core drill crews went to Kay, Grant, Logan and Garfield Counties in Oklahoma and to Sumner, Sedgwiek, Harvey and McPherson Counties in Kansas. By 1923, core drilling had reached East Texas and was busy with the Mexia fault problem. Marland Refining was one of the first Mid-Continent companies to use the core drill. Marland core drill program topped all others in number of crews and breadth of operations Marland core drill parties reached a maximum of twelve during 1923 and were still busy with a healthy program in 1926.

We have already seen how Marland played a prominent part in the 1921 work of the first reflection seismograph party to operate in the United States. Destiny also made him the instrument to bring the first contract refraction seismograph party to the United States. World famous geologist, W. A. J. M. van Waterschoot van der Gracht was President of the Roxana Peleum Corporation (Shell) from 1917 to 1922. There was reported to have been some dissatisfaction about his handling of the Haynesville, Louisiana, oilfield, discovered in 1921. In any event van der Gracht either resigned or was fired from the Shell organization in 1922. In 1923, Marland persuaded von der Gracht to become his Chief Geologist and a Vice President.

Van der Gracht had a good friend in Germany named Ludger Mintrop, who had organized the Seismos Company of Hannover on April 4, 1921. Later in 1921. the Seismos Company had tested its mechanical refraction seismograph on some of the salt formations in Germany. In 1923, a contract Seismos party was hired by Shell to attempt to work out certain structural problems in Mexico. A few months later, still in 1923, a second contract seismograph refraction crew with Seismos, was secured for the use of the Marland Oil Company of Oklahorna and the Marland Oil Company of Texas. The Marland contract with the Seismos Company was van der Gracht's idea. Dr. Perrine's enthusiasm for the possibilities of reflection shooting was never transferred to Marland. Van der Gracht's powers of persuasion must have been more forceful for soon he had Ernest Marland completely sold on the idea that refraction shooting by a German crew would be highly beneficial in locating oil structure. Marland again insisted on an exclusive right in the United States. Seismos agreed. The contract signed by Marland and Mintrop gave the Marland Oil Company exclusive use of the Mintrop seismic method "for the Mid-Continent and the Coast.“

John F. Weinzierl, one of Marland's geologists and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, who spoke German fluently, was put in charge of the magement of the party of German engineers who arrived in Ponca City in the summer of 1923. Heading the crew as Party Chief was none other than the head man, Ludger Mintrop. The Gerrnans trusted no one with the secret of their instruments. They insisted on two armed guards "riding shotgun" on their technical equipment while it was in the field or in transit. The first refraction shots were taken in the Mervine oilfield north of Ponca City. From there, they moved onto the 101 Ranch. By autumn of 1923, it was decided that Texas was a better environment than Oklahoma for the refraction methode.

The fall and winter of 1923-1924 was spent in various localities in East Texas in an attempt to delineate faults by the refraction system of shooting. By 1924, Seismos Party #2 was concentrating its efforts about fifty miles east of Dallas in the vicinity of Terrell, Forney, Lone Oak and Lake Tawakoni. Some fault indications had been picked up by the Marland core drill program but the refraction seismograph was unable to throw any additional light on the fault problem.

Finally, on March 1, 1924, Seismos Party #2 was moved into the Rice Hotel in Houston and from then until the Party was dismissed by Marland in November of 1925, it was used exclusively on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf ~ ast. That Seismos Party #2 never found a salt dome structure for the Marland Oil Company of Texas in more than a year and a half of elapsed time, is not altogether its fault. Apparently the areas covered by this crew simply did not contain any shallow salt domes. The Mintrop mechanical seismograph was limited to finding shallow domes. Deep domes, medium deep domes and even the deeper shallow domes were beyond the Seismos range.

In the spring of 1924, Shell of Mexico (Mexican Eagle) decided that Party #1 was a waste of time and money for that region and released the crew. The Gulf Oil Corporation wanted Party #1, for it was operated by Seismos top personneI. When Gulf offered Ludger Mintrop $30,000 per month plus expenses for the use of Seismos #1, Mintrop could not refuse even though the Gulf Oil Corporation also insisted on an exclusive contract in the Gulf Coast. When Marland and Gulf discovered that they were both operating under "exclusive" contracts in the Gulf Coast, there was a threat of a lawsuit. Both companies finally decided that they had best live with one another but to the exclusion of all others. Dr. Ludger Mintrop had an explanation of the Marland exclusive. "For the Mid-Continent and the Coast" meant an exclusive in the MidContinent and on the Pacific Coast.