History and the Oman Mountains
Regarding your article “Medalist a
World Geologist” (June EXPLORER), on
the occasion of Ken Glennie’s well-deserved award of the Sidney Powers
Medal:
I was a colleague of Ken during my
career as an explorationist with the Royal
Dutch-Shell Group. In fact, upon
completion of my basic training with the
company in late 1963, my first overseas
assignment was supposed to be a six
months “roving party” with Ken in
Afghanistan. Plans changed, however,
and in January 1964 I was sent to Oman
instead, first as well-site geologist for six
months then as field geologist for two
years. This was just before Ken would
move his studies of recent desert
sedimentation to Oman.
Regarding the structural interpretation
of the Oman Mountains, Glennie is
quoted as saying: “I led a team mapping
the Oman Mountains. In all the work
previous to that, everyone had thought
that all the rocks were deposited where
they currently were found.”
Actually, sedimentary rocks of the
Hawasina Group and basic/ultra-basic
rocks of the Semail Group were first
recognized in 1904-05 by Pilgrim, but it
was in 1928 that Lees, an IPC geologist,
published the results of his and Gray’s
memorable geological survey of the
interior of the Oman Mountains. With
profound insight, Lees concluded that
both the Hawasina and the Semail had
been emplaced as huge nappes
thrusted during the Upper Cretaceous.
After World War II, IPC was exploring
the Oman petroleum concession and
their geologists carried out more
extensive fieldwork from 1949-60, the
results of which are mostly in
unpublished reports. During that period
a drastic change of ideas was
introduced by Morton, who made the
Hawasina a lateral equivalent of the
clearly autochthonous Aruma shales
found in the desert wells, and
abandoned the concept of thrust sheets
altogether.
Following the drilling by IPC of a
number of unsuccessful exploration
wells, their Oman concession was taken
over, lock, stock and barrel, by Shell.
The first Shell fieldwork campaign
(1963-64) was carried out by Hans Kapp
and Peter Llewellyn, who made a
comprehensive survey of the
autochthonous sediments of the central
Oman Mountains. With respect to the
Hawasina and Semail, a secondary
objective, they stuck to Morton’s ideas.
Party chief Peter Kassler and I did the
second Shell campaign (1964-65). Part
of it dealt with the Haushi-Huqf area in
southern Oman, the other part was
devoted to “plugging the holes” and
extending the surveyed area of the
previous campaign. That is when Kassler
and I started to express some doubts as
to the validity of Morton’s ideas, following
our field observations in the Hawasina
and Semail rocks.
For the third Shell field season (1965-
66), I was party chief and my co-worker
was Jan Horstink. On our request, our
bosses agreed that the campaign would
be devoted to the unraveling of the
Hawasina-Semail complex. As work
progressed, we could subdivide the
Hawasina and map its various units (a
number of the current formation names
are ours) and observe its relationships
with the overlying Semail and underlying
sediments. It became more and more
evident that we were in the presence of
huge allochthons, just as Lees had
thought 40 years before.
The Shell field seasons lasted from
early October to May, seven days a
week under the tent or the stars, with a
two-week leave over Christmas and New
Year – truly the good old days! Thus,
much mapping had been carried out in
the Oman Mountains before Glennie’s
arrival.
Another of Glennie’s quotes was: “The
reason for going back to Oman was that
the head of Shell’s global exploration
had been on a field trip to Oman in the
1960.”
Indeed, this visit by Rudi Beck took
place during my second field season. I
took him around for a couple of days,
showing him why we favored an
allochthonous origin for the Hawasina
and the Semail. At the same time, I told
him that this type of fieldwork was not
very relevant to petroleum exploration
and would best be carried out by
university people who had the time that
we did not have. He then said, at the foot
of an exotic block in the Wadi Hawasina,
that it could be a job for the Shell
exploration lab people, “as they have
spent enough time already on delta and
desert studies.” At the moment, I did not
give much importance to this statement.
Unknown to us, of course, was the
fact that our re-interpretation of the
Oman Mountains structure gave rise to
much controversy in the Oman and
Hague offices, where Morton’s ideas
were taken for granted.
In 1966, when Horstink and I were
back in the Netherlands at the research
lab to write our report, we were surprised
to learn that an Oman Mountains team
was being formed there, comprising
Michel Boeuf, Mike Hughes-Clarke, Mark
Moody-Stuart (future Shell CEO), Pete
Pilaar and Ben Reinhardt, under the
leadership of Ken Glennie.
Our report (unpublished), “The
Mesozoic Nappes of the Oman
Mountains” was completed in January
1967. In 1973 the Glennie group
published the article “Late Cretaceous
Nappes in the Oman Mountains and
Their Significance” in the AAPG
BULLETIN. In 1974 the book “Geology of
the Oman Mountains” was published. In
its early pages, a couple of lines refer to
Jan Horstink’s and my interpretation.
As far as the prospectivity of the sub-
Hawasina structures was concerned, a
well was drilled later on one of the four
possible locations selected by Horstink
and myself. The results showed that the
Oman Mountains acreage could be
safely relinquished.
I have kept imperishable memories of
my time in Oman, certainly the best of
my Shell career. Still, in retrospect, I
regret that Jan Horstink and I did not
publish a paper in 1967. However, I had
just gotten married, was on my way to
Canada and Horstink was back in Oman
as field party chief.
I think that the “inside story” of Oman
Mountains’ successive interpretations
could be of interest to the readers of the
EXPLORER, especially the younger
ones, as the days of large scale, exciting
and ground-breaking field work by oil
geologists in more or less unknown
areas is over.
And, a word of advice to them:
Publish early if you have something
really new to say!
Jean Haremboure,
Allan, France
Drill It
I am greatly disappointed in the trend
toward questionable science and
zealotry expressed in letters to the
EXPLORER.
Creationism and God belong in
churches, not in AAPG journals. Instead
we should be seeing discussions on how
to best educate the public on evolution,
to prevent blunders like the Kansas
board of education. If the body of AAPG
members cannot resolve nonsense like
intelligent design/creationism and the
difference between faith (believing
without evidence or data) and theory
(rigorous testing of ideas against
observed data), then this organization is
in serious trouble.
Like evolution, the data for global
warming is overwhelming. If this data
were a prospect, we would have drilled it
years ago.
David Gallaher.
Idaho Springs, Colo.