In the year 1900, a man got off a train in Cadiz, in eastern Ohio, and hired a horse and buggy. He was William Tudor Griswold, employed by the U.S. Geological Survey as a topographic surveyor. Griswold was working on the Ohio Cooperative Topographic Survey, a joint initiative by the state and federal governments to map the topography of Ohio at 1:62,000 scale (15-minute quadrangles). In 1900, Ohio was one of many states engaged in cooperative topographic mapping with the USGS. Griswold was assigned to map the topography of the Cadiz and Flushing 15-minute quadrangles in eastern Ohio; by 1901 he had completed his mapping of these two quadrangles and soon turned his attention to other types of mapping.
In the early 1900s, the scientific principles underlying geology were not being used extensively to explore for oil and gas. In time, Griswold would change the way oil and gas exploration was conducted throughout the world. He came from a background similar to some of the early pioneering geologists, with experience in civil and mining engineering. But his application of traditional surveying techniques, along with the invention of unique ways of mapping geology in the subsurface and the teaching of this technique to his colleagues, changed the profession of geology and petroleum exploration. Griswold’s work in eastern Ohio would have a profound impact on the practice of using geology for petroleum exploration worldwide for the next 20 years.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1859, Griswold attended Columbia University School of Mines, graduating with a bachelor’s in civil engineering in 1881. Soon after graduation, he became one of the early topographic engineers with the USGS. Griswold mapped the topography of much of the United States, starting in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, followed by the northwestern states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and concluding with the Appalachian states of Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia, before arriving in Ohio.
Inventing a Practical Geologic Mapping Tool
As Griswold mapped the topography of the Cadiz and Flushing quadrangles, the excitement of the Scio oil boom reached the region of the city of Cadiz. Griswold knew about I.C. White’s article on the anticlinal theory of oil accumulation that had been published 15 years prior in 1885. During his work in Cadiz, Griswold noted that the outcrops of the major shallow marker beds, such as the Pittsburgh coal bed, occurred at relatively consistent elevations. He also noted these shallow beds had relatively consistent stratigraphic thicknesses between them. Griswold thought he might be able to create a subsurface map using his knowledge of topographic mapping. He began to map the outcrop elevations of the Pittsburgh coal bed along with mapping the locations of existing wells with well logs, especially those that penetrated the oil-producing Berea Sandstone of the nearby Scio oil field.
Griswold created structure contour maps of the Pittsburgh coal bed, using outcrop elevations and well logs, as well as the Berea Sandstone, using only well log information since it only occurs in the subsurface in this area. When he compared the two maps, he noticed that the thickness between the Pittsburgh and the Berea was relatively consistent, thickening from the northwest to the southeast. Griswold then decided to create a detailed interval thickness map to map the interval between the Pittsburgh coal bed and the Berea Sandstone. Using the detailed Pittsburgh coal bed structure contour map and the interval map, he could create a very detailed structure contour map of the Berea Sandstone by subtracting the interval thickness from the Pittsburgh coal bed structure contour map. This process projects the Pittsburgh coal bed contours downward on the top of the Berea Sandstone.
These techniques were quite revolutionary for several reasons.
First, Griswold applied plane table and alidade techniques to map outcrop elevations of significant marker beds, such as the Pittsburgh coal bed, along with mapping the locations of wells with well logs. Second, he mapped the subsurface structure contours of the shallow marker bed in detail. Third, he created a detailed interval map between the shallow marker bed and the deeper oil-producing sandstone. Finally, he used the detailed shallow structure contour map and the interval map to project structure contours downward to create detailed maps of the deeper Berea Sandstone in the subsurface. While shallow structure contours had been mapped previously, this was the first time that these techniques were combined to map structure contours of deeper oil-producing sandstones. The mapping completed in this study was praised by USGS as a significant advancement in the study of oil fields.
After the publication of the Cadiz quadrangle study in 1902, Griswold moved on to structure contour mapping of other quadrangles. He was next assigned to map the Berea Sandstone in the Steubenville, Burgettstown, Clarion and Claysville quadrangles, which covered portions of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The work in Pennsylvania supported the cooperative geologic and topographic mapping program between the USGS and the state of Pennsylvania.
Griswold also started supervising larger groups of employees to map both the geology and topography. One of his colleagues and co-author on the Steubenville, Burgettstown and Claysville quadrangles was Malcolm J. Munn. He employed other staff from the USGS to map the topography and geology of these three quadrangles. In the spring of 1904, Edgar Ware McCrary left the University of Arkansas to work for Griswold mapping the topography in Steubenville, Burgettstown and Claysville quadrangles. Fred Hutchinson, another student from the University of Arkansas and Edgar McCrary’s best friend, joined Griswold in 1906, mapping the subsurface geology of the Flushing quadrangle in Ohio.
Griswold’s work in the Appalachian basin influenced other contemporary geologists working for the USGS. Many of these geologist colleagues, including McCrary, Munn and Hutchinson, became early petroleum geologists or founders of AAPG.
Beginning of Professional Practice
By 1908, Griswold had left the USGS and started W.T. Griswold & Associates, one of the first geological consulting firms in the world to explore for oil, based in Marietta, Ohio. The firm’s primary clients were the Philadelphia Company and the Guffey and Gillespie Oil Company. The Philadelphia Company was George Westinghouse’s natural gas utility company in Pittsburgh, Pa. Joseph Guffey was one of the directors of that company, who hired W.T. Griswold & Associates to find oil and gas for the Philadelphia Company. Guffey, who would ultimately become a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, also owned his own oil company, Guffey and Gillespie Oil Company, which employed the services of W.T. Griswold & Associates.
Griswold provided two basic services for the firm’s clients: subsurface structure contour mapping for various oil sands throughout southeastern Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia; and farm-line maps. The farm-line maps depicted the boundaries of the properties, along with the locations of all oil and gas wells, and were used by the clients for leasing or purchasing mineral rights to properties. Making both types of products required a large field staff to perform the topographic and subsurface mapping, and Griswold had 15 to 20 staff members working in the field in southeastern Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, including McCrary and Hutchinson.
In 1909, William Griswold left W.T. Griswold & Associates to become the first chief geologist of the Philadelphia Company. His key associates took over the operation of the company, renaming it Hutchinson and McCrary. The company continued with business as usual, maintaining the same offices in Marietta and keeping the same staff working in the office and in the field. They also maintained many of the same clients as the prior W.T. Griswold & Associates, primarily the Philadelphia Company and the Guffey and Gillespie Oil Company. Hutchinson and McCrary was an active company from 1909 through 1912. By the end of 1912, work had dried up in the Appalachians and the company was closed. But for Edgar McCrary, new opportunities arose in the west.
Tulsa in the Teens
During the late 1890s through the early 1900s, oil exploration and production expanded northward away from Spindletop in the Texas Gulf Coast into the mid-continent area of Oklahoma and Kansas. Major oil discoveries, such as the Glenn Pool in 1905, and the Cushing Field in 1912, brought scores of people and companies into the Midcontinent to explore for oil. A number of these people were geologists trying to apply geologic methods to find oil.
At the end of 1912, Guffey hired McCrary to be the chief geologist of Guffey and Gillespie Oil Company. Because of the exploration and production activity in the Midcontinent, Guffey instructed McCrary to open an office in Tulsa, Okla. On Jan. 1, 1913, McCrary arrived in Tulsa and established the first geological department in an oil company there. The Guffey and Gillespie Oil Company used the plane table and alidade techniques invented by Griswold to create farm-line maps and subsurface structure contours maps of the oil-producing sands. In these early years, Guffey and Gillespie would employ several of the founders of AAPG, including McCrary and J. Elmer Thomas, who would later become the first president of AAPG in 1917.
In 1913, the Gypsy Oil Company, a subsidiary of Gulf Oil, hired Malcolm Munn to be the chief geologist for its Tulsa office. Munn had been working for the USGS since 1899, starting as a topographer and eventually becoming a geologist working under Griswold in 1906. In July 1913, he moved to Tulsa to establish the second geological department in an oil company there with Gypsy. Munn used the techniques that he had learned from Griswold to create farm-line maps and subsurface maps of the oil-producing sands. The Gypsy Oil Company employed many geologists between 1913 and 1918, and along with Munn, some of them would later become founders of AAPG.
Griswold’s Legacy
The influence of William Griswold was not limited to the geologists with whom he worked directly. Many of the early oil exploration geologists first worked for either the USGS or one of the state geological surveys, where they read the literature concerning the hunt for anticlines using structure contour maps.
One such geologist was Everett Carpenter, a 1911 graduate of the University of Oklahoma who had become enthusiastic about the anticlinal theory of oil accumulation while a student. During college and afterward, he worked for both the Oklahoma Geological Survey and the USGS. In August 1913, he went to work for Quapaw Gas Company, one of the Cities Services companies. When he started at Quapaw, he requested a plane table and alidade for geologic mapping purposes, which was turned down since it was not standard equipment for a geologist. Even though he was turned down, he managed to get the equipment purchased and subsequently received a reprimand for the effort. Nonetheless, Carpenter produced major discoveries using subsurface structure contour mapping, including the Eldorado field in Kansas. His discoveries were the major driver in the acceptance and usage of structure contour mapping in oil-and-gas exploration.
By 1918, there were many teams in the Midcontinent mapping topography and subsurface geology using the subsurface mapping techniques pioneered by Griswold.
The Birth of AAPG
The tool that enabled geology to be used in oil exploration was the creation and use of structure contour maps. The techniques invented by William Griswold presented a very practical method of creating structure contour maps using plane table and alidade. It was an easy, cost-effective and eventually an early revolutionary method of imaging the subsurface. Griswold’s USGS colleagues and business associates essentially became the disciples of this technology, teaching and demonstrating its usefulness in finding oil and gas to the rest of the industry.
Between 1915 and 1917, geologists began to gather to exchange ideas about petroleum geology. Several meetings were held by geologists in Oklahoma to discuss oil exploration, and it was at one of these meetings in February 1917 that AAPG was founded. Mapping structure contours using plane table and alidade was the practical technique that made the use of geology indispensable to oil and gas exploration and was an underlying and fundamental technology that enabled the founding of AAPG.