Story Richard D. Garrett, Photos James D. Spicer, Richard D. Garrett, originally published in the 1973 Fall Western Profile
Recounted by Scott Singleton
The Doodlebugger Diary recounts the experiences of geophysicists during their working lives. I’ve published extensively on my own experiences and encourage those of you with experiences of your own to also contribute. Your fellow industry professionals would love to hear your stories.
I’ve been occasionally reprinting a series of early 1980’s articles from the GSI Shotpoints and GSI Grapevine that can be found at http://gsinet.us/. I also have reprinted various Western Geophysical Profile articles. These can be found at https://library.seg.org/page/western-profile. The past two months I reprinted two stories of Western’s early boat-building escapades. This month I bring you an incredibly hair-raising story of the experiences of one particular field crew, having the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which of course is what all of us field types experienced at one point or another in our careers. Enjoy!
Prolog by Scott Singleton
Peru holds a special place in my doodlebugging past. I spent the first half of 1998 birddogging an offshore survey in the far northern Talara Basin (Figure 1) and then processing that data in the Lima office of the oil company that acquired the survey. I wrote about these experiences in the Doodlebugger Diary in a 5-part series (January – May, 2019). I then followed that with a 3-part Doodlebugger Diary series by ex-SEG President Nancy House (June-October, 2019). She spent five years in the mid-1990’s with Mobil overseeing development in the Madre de Dios Basin which is in the southeastern part of Peru’s Amazon (Figure 1).
The following article predates both Nancy and I by several decades. It describes some of the initial efforts to acquire 2D seismic in the dense Amazon jungle of Peru. These efforts, by the way, were not in vain but instead for the first time imaged the subsurface of the Andes foreland basin on the Amazon side. It gradually led to enough interest that the Peruvian government signed contracts with Shell to explore in the Ucayali Basin (the same basin that is described in this article). This led to the discovery of the huge Camisea gas field in the Madre de Dios basin in 1986.
Lima, Peru, 1973
We the Westerners in Peru would like to dedicate this article to Frank Freeman, who lost his life here in a plane accident January 17, 1973.
INFERNO? Paradise? Oil Boom? Peru, with its desert coast, 22,000-foot mountains, 15 beefless days, dense and hot jungles, winding rivers, and wild Indians; beautiful women, colonial architecture, lavish fruits, superb restaurants, pisco sours, theaters, museums, and sporting events; and 30 oil companies exploring 40,000,000 acres in the jungle. Yes, Peru is all of this and more.
Covering an area of 496,222 square miles, Peru is about the size of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas combined. It is located on the Pacific coast of South America and is bounded by Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and the Pacific Ocean (Figure 2).
The Inca (meaning king) Empire, which grew out of the Quechua-Aymara civilization, began around 1200 AD and is the most famous period of Peru's culture, which goes back 4,000 years. The Incas mastered the techniques of alloying metals and goldsmithing; they were excellent agriculturists (it is to them that we owe Indian corn and the potato); and they were superb engineers and architects, building highways to connect all corners of their empire (the present Pan American highway follows portions of their road system) and constructing massive cities in the Andes Mountains and coastal deserts and aqueducts to irrigate their crops. Their empire fell to the Spaniards, led by Francisco Pizarro, in 1533. It was not until 1821 that the Argentine liberator, Jose de San Martin, defeated the Spanish viceroyalty and declared Peru liberated. Peruvian independence was recognized by Spain in 1824.
The capital of Peru, Lima, is situated on the Pacific coast, about halfway between the country's northern and southern borders. More than 20% (3,000,000) of the population lives in this city, with the main employers being the government and the plastic, automobile, and fishing industries. The mountains shelter the coast from eastern rain clouds, and so there is virtually no rain in Lima. Because the cold Humboldt Current produces an ocean mist, however, except for the summer months of December, January, and February, the sky is a leaden gray. Lima is "rest city" for most of the men when they are able to take some time off. The normally mild temperature allows Westerners to spend much of their time sightseeing or girl watching from sidewalk cafes. Speaking of girl watching, it has been successful, as attested to by the fact that three Westerners, two party managers and an observer, have recently married Peruvian girls.
The preliminary groundwork for Western's Peruvian operation was laid in 1971 by Vice President V. C. Boyd and Manager of Operations W. T. Brooks. A Peruvian company was formed, Servicios de Exploracion de Petroleo S.A., or "SEXPET" to the embarrassment of some English-speaking people.
The capital of Peru, Lima, is situated on the Pacific coast, about halfway between the country's northern and southern borders. More than 20% (3,000,000) of the population lives in this city, with the main employers being the government and the plastic, automobile, and fishing industries. The mountains shelter the coast from eastern rain clouds, and so there is virtually no rain in Lima. Because the cold Humboldt Current produces an ocean mist, however, except for the summer months of December, January, and February, the sky is a leaden gray. Lima is "rest city" for most of the men when they are able to take some time off. The normally mild temperature allows Westerners to spend much of their time sightseeing or girl watching from sidewalk cafes. Speaking of girl watching, it has been successful, as attested to by the fact that three Westerners, two party managers and an observer, have recently married Peruvian girls.ocated a piece of ground that was about one foot above the water and claimed it as the Spaniards had claimed Peru.
On returning to Pucallpa, he was joined by four more crew members. Having more to do than time allowed, everybody set off in separate directions, hiring personnel, purchasing supplies, renting an office and warehouse, checking out equipment, constructing buildings, cutting line (with machetes and axes, no 'dozers unless they have wings), and drilling. Before we knew it, Party 40 was paying, feeding, and clothing 500 men and had built a small city in the middle of the jungle, called San Roque.
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