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A historic correspondence regarding the introduction of the torsion balance to the United States

The Herbert Robertson Company, Dallas, Texas, U.S.

Corresponding author: herb@passion.isem.smu.edu

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

As the following letters indicate, extraordinary combined efforts of Everette Lee DeGolyer and Donald C. Barton, two of the most famous petroleum geoscientists prior to World War II, were needed to introduce the torsion balance into the United States in the early 1920s in order to prospect for salt domes in the Gulf Coast.

The letters describe DeGolyer's plans for the torsion balance and Barton's journey to Budapest, Hungary, to receive two instruments from Ferdinand Suss, to receive classroom and on-the-job training in German at the Eötvös Geophysical Institute, to ship them to the United States, and to test them at Spindletop, Texas. At the time, DeGolyer was vice president of the Amerada Petroleum Company and a consultant to Mexican Eagle Oil Company. Barton received a doctorate in geology from Harvard in 1914 and served in the U.S. Army during World War I. DeGolyer hired him in 1919 to run Amerada's torsion-balance and magnetometer programs.

The tests at Spindletop established the viability of the technique for detecting salt domes. Two years later, one of Amerada's torsion balance crews, under Barton's supervision, detected the Nash salt dome in Brazoria County, Texas. A producing well was completed in 1926, making this the first discovery of an oil field by any geophysical technique.

Although not yet 40 years old at the time of this correspondence, DeGolyer was already the most famous petroleum geologist in the world and would remain so until his death in 1956. He played a key role in the formation of AAPG and was elected SEG's first Honorary Member.

Barton, as result of the success of the torsion balance, quickly became one of the best known names in the new field of geophysical exploration. He was the key figure in the formation of the SEG in 1930 (he had membership . . . [Full Text of this Article]