Everette Lee DeGolyer The Boy Wonder From Oklahoma, Part 2
By Ray Brown Oklahoma Geological Survey

Everette Lee DeGolyer’s Most Famous Discovery – The Potrero del Llano No.4, near Tuxpam, Mexico made 70 million barrels between 1910-1917. See what two years of an OU education can accomplish! Picture taken from text by George Elliot Sweet (1978).

After DeGolyer’s famous oil discovery while taking a leave of his studies at OU, Lord Cowdray allowed DeGolyer to return to OU where he finished his degree in geology at OU in 1911. Upon graduation, DeGolyer started to work with the Mexican Eagle Oil Company as Chief Geologist. DeGolyer worked with the Mexican Eagle Oil Company in Mexico until President Woodrow Wilson advised all Americans to get out of Mexico because of a revolution that was taking place. In 1914, DeGolyer returned to Oklahoma as a geological consultant for other companies as well as the Mexican Eagle Oil Company, his chief client. Shortly after arriving in Norman, DeGolyer was invited to London to talk to Lord Cowdray about starting a world wide oil company. These plans were interrupted by the advent of World War I. However, during this pre-war visit, a professor of geodesy (emeritus) at Cambridge University put DeGolyer in touch with Roland von Eotvos. He immediately contacted Eotvos for a bid on a torsion balance gravimeter. Unfortunately the war prevented both the starting of the new company and DeGolyer’s contact with Eotvos in 1914. It is clear that DeGolyer had an early interest in using geophysical methods for exploration and was going to be a leader in efforts to use new geophysical methods.
During 1915 and the early part of 1916, DeGolyer’s time was divided between his home in Norman, Oklahoma where OU is located and his Mexican office in Tampico. The Mexican Eagle Oil Company was still his first client but he was adding other clients to his list. It was during this time that DeGolyer and Professor Charles Henry Taylor (head of the Department of Geology at OU) discussed organizing what is now called the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). Professor Charles Henry Taylor guided DeGolyer’s thesis in his final period at OU. Apparently a thesis was required for a Batchelor’s degree in those days. DeGolyer played a prominent role in the first meeting held in Norman on January 7 and 8, 1916. The name for that first meeting was “the Southwestern Association of Petroleum Geologists at Norman”. It all started in Oklahoma.

Vice President of Amerada

In 1918 when Royal Dutch Shell expressed an interest in purchasing the Mexican Eagle Oil Company, DeGolyer was flown to London to help with the sale. By the spring of 1919, the arrangement with Shell had been finalized. In the same year, Lord Cowdray formed two new oil ventures. One of these companies was to explore North America (American and Canada) and was called Amerada. The other company was to explore the rest of the world. DeGolyer was to be the Vice President and General Manager of Amerada. It was from his position with Amerada that DeGolyer would eventually meet Karcher. However, as described above, DeGolyer’s interest in technology started long before he ever met Karcher in 1925. In addition to the position as Vice President for Amerada, DeGolyer agreed to consult with Shell in order to help them get started in Mexico.
Through Lord Cowdray, DeGolyer got in touch with two members of the Physics Department at Cambridge University in 1919. DeGolyer spent time talking with these faculty members about sound ranging studies conducted during the war. He also discussed with them the possibility of locating salt domes in coastal Texas and Louisiana with the Eotvos torsion balance and also with some form of seismograph. In addition, DeGolyer discussed these ideas with a Dr. Erb, a chief geologist for Shell. Remember that DeGolyer tried to get one of the torsion gravimeters before the war. Now he could move more aggressively toward acquiring new technology to enhance finding oil and gas reservoirs than he could when World War I was starting earlier.
Unfortunately, Baron Roland Eotvos died on April 8, 1919 setting back DeGolyer’s plans to get a torsion gravimeter. DeGolyer managed to get around this hurdle by hiring two of the successors of Eotvos at the Eotvos Institute to build two torsion balances. They were delivered in New York City on September 5, 1922. They were tested in the field near Houston in November. One balance was sent to Mexico for use by the Mexican Eagle Oil Company while the other was used to make a balance survey of the Spindletop Oilfield near Beaumont, Texas. Spindletop is a salt dome that gave a pronounced gravity anomaly. In the spring of 1924, the same torsion balance was used by the Rycade Oil Corporation (a subsidiary of Amerada) to make the first discovery of an oil field by geophysical means, the Nash salt dome in Brazoria County, Texas. Rycade is an acronym for Ryder, Carr and DeGolyer who were three executives for Amerada. It is easy to see how important DeGolyer’s role was in this story. He knew the value of technology and was actively responsible for the first torsion balance discovery in the U.S.
In the early part of this story DeGolyer met his wife, by seeking to meet the German tutor for his German class at OU. Later he met the head of the USGS by planting some beer in a nearby stream. You can imagine that his meeting with Karcher was no accident either. He was actively looking for Karcher when the two met. The two of them worked together to make geophysical history. Our next history section will discuss Karcher's early life that led to the first seismic reflection company in history and how DeGolyer and Karcher met to become partners.

Everette Lee DeGolyer. Picture taken from the 1908 Mistletoe. The caption for this picture reads as follows: “E.L. DeGolyer. Kappa Alpha. Class President, ’05. Class Football and Baseball, ’06-’07. Forum., ’05. Mistletoe Staff.” DeGolyer was active from the very beginning.