Photographic Memory: Well survey from the 1950s

In the early 1950s, the Arabian American Oil Co. (Aramco) conducted surveys of 26 wells throughout the Rub’ al-Khali (The Empty Quarter) desert. Though none of the wells resulted in commercial discoveries, most were intended to yield stratigraphic information about the geology of the region. Later analysis of core and cutting samples from these early wells, like the one marked in this 1952 photograph of surveyor C.W. Brown, proved instructive in the search for nonassociated gas in the area.