Text from "Trek of the Oil finders: A History of Exploration for Petroleum, AAPG Memoir 6, 1975.
T. F. Williamson (no relation to "Haji" Williamson) made a more comprehensive survey of Qatar in the winter of 1937-1938. Williamson wrote:
When I returned from home leave in 1937, was sent to Qatar. A geological reconnaissance had already been made [by Cox and Shaw} and a small area of Jebel Dukhan had been mapped in detail [by Ion in 1933-1934] to aid in siting the first test well on that easily recognizable structure [50 miles long with 3000 feet of closure in middle Eocene limestones] and it was now considered necessary to map the whole country. I was joined by R. Pomeryrol, a French geologist, N. E. Baker, the Chief Geologist, followed us soon after our arrival to fix the location of the first well.
In our survey we re greatly assisted by our guide, Sheikh Mansour. I have employed a number of local guides during my geological career, some have been very good indeed, even when using what was to them an unfamiliar mode of transport-the motor car: others were utterly confused by the speed at which cars covered. The ground: a few seemed to depend on the sun for their orientation and were helpless on a cloudy day, But Sheikh Mansour seemed to be quite unaffected by an outside influences. He appeared to have a complete mental picture of the whole of Qatar and had a quite uncanny capacity for knowing exactly where he was under all conditions--in clear weather, in fog, or even in darkness.
Much of our work consisted of finding a particular geological horizon which was identified by one distinct fossil--Alveolina to the geologist, but to the layman a small piece of white stone the size and shape of a grain of rice. Mansour knew these fossils from his experience with earlier parties [Cox and Shaw] and could lead us to the localities where they had found the fossils and could also tell us of other spots which he knew the fossils were to be found. As well as being a splendid guide, Mansour had a quick and clear appreciation of our ideas and requirements and as his standing was high with all classes of the local inhabitants, his advice on many occasions prevented disputes and smoothed over difficulties.
(Quoted by Wellings, 1995.)
F. E. Wellings added a postscript to the story of this remarkable guide:
Sheikh Mansour went blind from trachoma during the war and was treated at the company's expense, but in vain. However, with a nephew as "seeing eye" he conducted Norval E. Baker and the writer in 1946 over another part of this featureless peninsula and located new outcrops of the famous Alveolina bed. He seemed to know every bump on the camel trails and could tell where the next fork would come and would ask his nephew to describe the scene--particular bush for example (Wellings, 1995.)
Qatar Petroleum Company drilled the first well, Dukhan No. 1, at the location which Baker selected. This was spudded in October 1938 and completed for 5,000 barrels per day in January 1940. The resident geologist was then N. T. Langham who had succeeded E. J. Daniel. He identified the oil limestones of the Zekrit formation as Nos. 1, 2, and 3, not know that tow years earlier in Dammam No. 7, the first well to find oil in the Jurassic on the mainland of Saudi Arabia, the California Standard geologists had named them A, B, C, and D of the Arab zone.
Dukhan no. 2, ten miles south, came in the following year from N. 3 limestone but found only gas in the No. 4 underneath only 60 feet of anhydrite cover (Wellings, 1965.)
Selected References
Wellings, F.E., 1965, History of geology in the Iraq Petroleum Company: unpub. ms.: E. W. Owen colln.
Mohammed, A.R., and j. A. Hussey, and E. Reindl, 1995, Catalogue of Oman Lithostratigraphy.
The Photo above is from the Mohammed et al reference. My recollection from Qatar is the the Alveolina were more oblate. Does anyone have a better picture?
The choice of text and highlighting of text are mine, WHP.
