THE HISTORY OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING
PART FOURTEEN - FROM ALLIGATOR TO AUSTRALIA

Chapter 41  -  The Ultimate in Exploration

Approximately a month after the incorporation cf the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company, a contract was signed between it and the Amerada under the terms of which L. L. and E. paid Amerada the bare cost of running two refraction seismograph crews. Amerada was to take all profits above the cost of the geophysical work in bonds and common stock of the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company. Today, as a result of this commitment, Amerada Petroleum Corporation owns 978,000 shares of L. L. and E. stock, worth roughly fifty million dollars. Under the terms of the contract, one GRC party was to start immediately to construct and equip the necessary boats to operate two water survey parties. The first party was to be ready to take the field for L. L. and E. by late summer; a second GRC water party was to start refraction operations about thirty days after the first party had initiated its shooting program.

Carol G. Rosaire was made party chief of the first GRC water party. Rosaire, accompanied by his three observers; George Lack, John Flude and George Titterington, went to the town of Lake Arthur in June of 1927. They found a suitable house-boat, purchased it and began adding a second story. When this houseboat was completed it was christened, "The Galloping Goose." Construction was started on six observers' boats and two shooters' boats; all luggers and averaging about 35 feet in length. Four of the eight boats were  outfitted with the necessary instruments and equipment. This accomplished, the boats, boatmen and the technical personnel were transported through the various waterways, including the intercoastal canal, to Lake Calcasieu to begin seismic operations. The computor was C. V.  A. Pittman, the shooter was Blondie Durrett and the first helper to be hired was Louis Ayo.

Carol Rosaire's crew was designated as GRC Party #7 and it fired its first shot and took its first records on August 15, 1927. Before the end of August, Party #7 had found its first salt dome, called Calcasieu Lake salt dome, and situated in the southeast portion of Lake Calcasieu, south of the City of Lake Charles in Cameron Parish. Late in November, 1927, Party #7 discovered the Lake Pelto salt dome, south of Houma, Louisiana, in the eastern portion of Lake Pelto in Terrebonne Parish.

In September of 1927, the Gulf Production Company decided to lay off the original GRC party, Party #1; retaining Party #2 under Eugene McDermott. Party #1 with O. C. Lester as party chief, fired its first shot and recorded its first records on September 10, 1927. Party #1 found its first salt dome for the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company on September 25, 1927. It was the Vermilion Bay salt dome in Vermilion Bay of Iberia Parish. The original observers were A. L. Smith, John Pfau and Walter Bibb. The computor on Party #1 was Robert "Little Snakes" LaTouche. GRC Party #1 spent the greater part of October detailing the Vermilion Bay salt dome, then moved to Terrebonne Parish, where Carol Rosaire's Party #7 was already operating. O. C. Lester picked up the Dog Lake salt dome and the Four Isle salt dome within a three day period in November of 1927. When he got on the train to go to Houston to report his double discovery, he met Carol Rosaire on the same train, also proceeding to the GRC Houston office to report the finding of the Lake Pelto salt dome. Within the period of less than on week, the two GRC parties had found three different salt domes in Terrebonne Parish for the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company. Lester went on to discover the Bay St. Elaine salt dome in early December, also in Terrebonne Parish, to bring the GRC discoveries for L. L. and E. in the year 1927 to a total of six.

The year 1928 dawned with a new party chief for GRC Party #1, Aylwin L. Smith. Oliver C. Lester, Jr., the old party chief, went on special assignment on January 1, 1928; by mid-1928 he had been transferred to the GRC Houston office as assistant supervisor under Dr. E. E. Rosaire. Al Smith moved up from chief observer to party chief of GRC Party #1. This crew operated for the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company for the first three months of 1928, was released, and went at once under contract to the Pure Oil Company. Smith found the Bay Junop salt dome in Terrebonne Parish during the second half of January, 1928, and worked until mid-February detailing that dome. During the second half of February and all of March; Party #1 was busy making a detailed study of the Lake Pelto salt dome.

GRC Party #7 remained under Carol G. Rosaire. Party #7 found the Lake Barre salt dome in Terrebonne Parish in March and the Caillou Island salt dome in Terrebonne Parish in April, 1928. That was the last dome to be discovered for the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company until the mid-1930s. Nine salt domes were found in sixteen crew-months, a record never equaled or even approached in the history of geophysical exploration. Four were found under the leadership of Ollie Lester in a period of four months, four Mere found under the leadership of Carol Rosaire in a period of nine months, and one was found by Al Smith in a period of three months. Seven of the salt domes were situated in Terrebonne Parish, one in Iberia Parish and one in Cameron Parish. How good was the GRC coverage of Terrebonne Parish? In 1966 there are still these seven domes in Terrebonne Parish and no others. Coon Point salt dome, found by refractions in 1937, sometimes listed with the GRC seven, is in the open waters of the Gulf and was not a part of the territory covered by the GRC operations of 1927-1928.

The writer worked on GRC Party #7 during the months of April and May, 1928, and helped with the interpretation of the Caillou Island salt dome. After the discovery of Caillou Island the crew moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, and detailed the Calcasieu Lake salt dome. This dome is situated entirely under the open waters of the Lake, so that adverse weather conditions had a direct bearing on the difficulties involved in the detailing operations. One day with a stiff breeze blowing, all hands, including Rosaire and myself, were busy lining up the boats and doing odd jobs. We lost a geophone overboard, stuck in the mud. Being a good swimmer, I stripped to the skin and dived to the bottom of the shallow lake in an attempt to recover the lost geophone. As my head bobbed up from the first dive, Carol Rosaire caught sight of me and jumped to the conclusion that he had lost a man overboard as weIl as a geophone. He broke all records in finding a life-preserver and heaving it in my direction. Rosaire insisted in "rescuing" me ahead of the missing geophone. For the first time I had concrete evidence that the GRC considered me a valuable piece of property. In June, I joined an Amerada party in East Texas and had no more to do with the L. L. and E. work until in September of 1931, I did a review of all of the data on the Vermilion Bay salt dome at the request of Dr. Eugene Rosaire.

Party #7 continued the detailing survey of Lake Calcasieu through most of the month of June. Late June and all of July were occupied in detailing the Lake Barre salt dome. In August, Party #7 completed a full year of field operations which closed out its contract with the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company. Maurice Ewing worked for Party #7 during the summer of 1928. He was so weIl thought of that he was given the position of chief observer on the party even though he was on summer vacation. Maurice had just been awarded his M. A. in Physics and would return to Rice Institute in September to start work on his doctorate. Ewing was instrumental that summer in working out a new mathematical treatment useful in the delineation of overhang on a salt dome.

Carol Rosaire had a rule that the most ethical employee on his crew was made custodian of the blasting caps. On a water survey party, the dynamite barge is normally tied up along side the house-boat, where the crew eats and sleeps. Dynamite is inert and relatively safe. The blasting caps, however, are made of fulminate of mercury end present a more potent danger. Also the blasting caps must be kept religiously away from the dynamite. Since religion was involved, we can realize how logical was the party chief's contention that the individual made cuscodian of the blasting caps must be the man with the highest moral code. Haverford College, founded near Philadelphia in 1833, was the first institution of higher learning established in the United States by the Society of Friends. This college furnished three good men to the GRC, A. I. Innes, Francis Campbell and C. V. A. Pittman. Rosaire decided that he would place full reliance on a Quaker, so he installed the locker containing the blasting caps under the bed of his computor, Mr. Pittman.

Pittman had a difficult time sleeping for the first few nights but in course of time he learned to live with his nightly companion as though it did not exist. A parallel brand of excitement was swimming with the alligators. A crewman had to swim to keep clean and if the houseboat happened to be anchored at the mouth of some bayou, which it generally was, you knew that you were swimming in the near presence of any number of alligators, for they were everywhere, usually hidden by water. When one leaps off a springboard into Water containing reptiles up to twenty feet in length and possessed of several feet of sharp teeth, one learns to make shallow dives. After a few weeks of swimming in Louisiana bayous you forget about the alligators for unlike their crocodile cousins, they do not attack men. The Cajun boatmen were happy to relate all they knew about alligator lore. One prominent item in said lore was the story that the alligators consider dogs a prime delicacy and will snatch a swimming canine out of the water in a minimum of time. So there remained two dangers, however remote. One was ramming into an alligator under water and falling afoul of the cut of his jaws or the swish of his powerful tail. The second was being mistaken for a Great Dane by a nearsighted reptile. Most seismic parties employed one speed-boat, powered by an outboard motor. The driver of the speed-boat carried a stock of a couple of hundred shear-pins. When the propellor hit a submerged alligator, the shearpin broke off and the propellor remained undamaged. In fairly active months of operation, the speed-boat operator might have to install fifty or more new shear-pins; proving how plentiful were the alligators.

In October of 1928, a GRC party especially equipped and staffed for the purpose of detailing salt domes went to work for the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company with Arthur Kerns as party chief. Between October, 1928, and February, 1929, this crew detailed four salt domes, all in Terrebonne Parish; Dog Lake, Bay St. Elaine, Bay Junop and Four Isle. In July and August of 1929, Caillou lsland salt dome was detailed by a GRC reflection party. The East Hackberry salt dome had been discovered by a German Seismos crew in 1926 and drilled into production that same year. L. L. and E. owned important acreage on this structure. A GRC party under Carol Rosaire detailed the East Hackberry salt dome in November of 1929, using refractions.

The Louisiana Land and Exploration Company was lightning-fast in following up the GRC salt dome discoveries with the drill. On September 12, 1927, just three weeks after its discovery, L. L. and E. had completed a test weIl to a depth of 5,309 feet on the Calcasieu Lake salt dome. A second test went down in October and a third in November. Calcasieu Lake salt dome was destines to remain unproductive for thirty-one long years. Finally, after a total of 27 dry holes had been drilled on this toughest of all prospects, the Hunt Oil Company brought in the first producer in 1958 in a weIl that bottomed at the depth of 14,054 feet.

The GRC found the Vermilion Bay salt dome on September 25, 1927; L. L. and E. drilled the first test in October, 1927, which drilled into salt at a depth of 941 feet. In 1928, Louisiana Land and Exploration Company drilled two dry holes on its holdings on the East Hackberry salt dome. In mid November of 1928, L. L. and E. brought in a good producer on the East Hackberry salt dome. This event came after the oral deal with the Texas Company had already been made. Production on East Hackberry came too late to effect the thinking that brought the Texas Company contract into existence; the details will be related in the next chapter.