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Memories of a Geologist - The 1960's
by Brian Krogseng
179 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0172; ISBN 1-4120-2344-0; US$19.00, C$21.00, EUR15.50, £11.00
Life in the 1960's as an adventurous, independant-minded geologist/geophysicist.
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About the Book About the Author Excerpt Catalogue Information
About the Book
This book is not intended to be about geology or mineral exploration but rather about the way things were done in the somewhat wild 60's with geology and mineral exploration as a background. Compared to the present day, the regulatory realm was practically non-existent in the 60's. People made their own rules according to their conscience, and, in some cases, the conscience was practically non-existent. Another major difference, compared to present day, was the casual use of alcohol. Not drunkenness, but rather, it was common practice to have a drink or two, (or maybe three) whenever two or more men met to discuss business or the state of the world. And, of course, it was unheard of for women to be involved in field exploration work.
These practices are illustrated as the author plunges, with little or no supervision, into his chosen field. During a six-year period, he follows an ever changing path of his own choosing to adventures and learning experiences. He unintentionally get involved in some scams along the way, one of which was a major scam of the decade stretching from Nevada to the Dominican Republic.
About the Author
Brian Krogseng was born in 1935 and raised in the northwoods of Minnesota sixty miles south of the Canadian border. After graduating from Kelliher High School he worked for several months for the US Forest Service in Idaho and then joined the army where most of his time was served in Fort Knox, Kentucky. Upon learning that he was entitled to the GI Bill he got an early release from the Army and went to college in Minnesota in 1962.
He was hired by Standard Oil of California and spent a few months riding offshore geophysical boats along the California and Oregon coast. Then, for the next eight months, he found himself poring over twenty-five-year-old seismic records in an office in Bakersfield, California. This was not to his liking so he landed a job as a research geophysicist for North American Aviation in Downey, California. Here, he found an escape from hum-drum office work and got involved in mineral exploration. After five years with North American he went independent, first with some partners and then on his own as a free-lance geologist/geophysicist. In 1971, he went back to Minnesota, settled down, and worked for Twin City Testing in St. Paul for fifteen years doing engineering geology and geophysics, spending a large share of his time in the field. In 1986, he gave in to his yearn for independence and became an independent consultant. He currently lives in his forty acre patch of woods in western Wisconsin with his second wife, Debbie, and still practices consulting in the field of geology and geophysics.
Excerpt
Platinum? Back in the city Bill and Mike were lining up potential investors for the Good Mormon Doctor's platinum project. Bill had a tremendous talent for convincing or charming people into doing almost anything. He was tall, handsome, well built, well groomed and expensively dressed. He had a friendly relaxed manner and a gift for telling people what they liked to hear. And it was no accident that a majority of his potential investors were women. And his partner, Mike Conrad, right there with him backing him up, was one of the most likable people anyone could ever meet. The two of them were hard to resist, as I and my partners had experienced earlier. Bill had been communicating with the Good Mormon Doctor and had informed him that the dollar goal had been reached. Doctor H. then came through with his preliminary part of the deal. He had several drums of the platinum ore in Torrance and had actually started construction on his ore processing building. He invited us to come down and take a look.
The five Geonics partners, Bill, Mike, Don, Jim and myself all went to the Torrance site to meet the Good Mormon Doctor to see what he had. The site was in an open area with no nearby buildings except for an older small building on Dr. H.'s site. New concrete footings had recently been poured for what the Good Mormon Doctor said would be his new platinum processing plant. At one end of the new building footings were six heavy steel drums banded with heavy steel straps all locked with heavy duty padlocks. Two burly guards were pacing back and forth with prominent 45 caliber pistols holstered on their belts.
The Good Mormon Doctor was there to welcome us and apologized for not having much to show us. He said that he wanted us to see that he was going ahead with the deal and hoped that we were too. He had ore samples there as he had promised but he did not want to open the sealed drums yet until the place was more secure. Bill told him that was understandable and that he too was progressing well with getting the money and that things looked good.
A couple weeks later I decided to drive by the site unannounced to see how things were going. Nothing had changed since our first visit, the new footings and the steel drums were there but nobody was in sight - no armed guards and no further work done. I was mildly surprised but thought that, well - things were on hold and Dr. H. had decided that he didn't really need the guards but - it was a little strange.
Then I went back on the road again, making the tour. I ran into some school mates from the Minnesota School of Mines days at a mining convention in Las Vegas. They were working for Cleveland Cliffs Mining Company in Colorado and were interested in what I was doing. We decided that I would show them our prospects sometime in March. Jim and I met with Hale Tognoni who was getting a geophysical survey job lined up for us in the Wickenburg, Arizona area for some people from Texas. Also we, the Geonics partners, decided that we would do a lot more work on Dick and Bea Huff 's prospect in the Panamint Valley. All of this took a lot of running around the countryside.
Several weeks after our first visit to the Good Mormon Doctor's platinum processing site I got back to our city office just in time to learn that Bill's and Mike's investors were to meet with the Good Doctor at the processing site to be shown the building plans and samples of the ore. They were ready to put up the three hundred fifty thousand dollars if the advertised ore could be verified. The meeting with Dr. H. was scheduled for the next day. I wasn't exactly invited but I decided to tag along. Dr. H. had set up a small laboratory in the old building on the site and had a few pieces of lab equipment including a binocular microscope. I had never met the investors who were two women and two men as I recall. The lead investor, or the spokesperson, was an early middle-aged lady who was involved heavily in real estate in the Los Angeles area. The Good Doctor showed them the building footings and the building plans and then took them into the laboratory to show them the ore. He placed a small pan containing the material under the microscope and, as he peered into the microscope, explained what he was looking at. He then let each of them look at the material. They each took their turn at looking and nodded their heads as though they understood.
Up to this point I had been a non-participant, just trailing along behind the group. But after the rest of them had their turn at the microscope I took mine. I had read enough about how platinum occurs to know the type of rock in which it was normally found but I had never seen platinum as it occurs in nature and didn't really know what to look for. When I looked into the microscope all I saw was some crushed rock. The type of rock seemed to fit but I didn't see anything that I could identify as platinum. When I told the Good Doctor that I didn't see any platinum he said; "Well, you have to know what to look for. It's finally disseminated and hard to recognize. But wait a minute. I'll get another sample."
He got another sample out of a bag and put it under the microscope. While looking through the microscope he said; "There, thats what I wanted to show you." He turned and looked at the group of investors and said; "Look at this. See, that shiny yellow material. That's gold. There is enough gold along with the platinum to make this worthwhile."
All of the investors took their turns looking and all nodded their heads and said "Yes, I see the gold."
Then I took my turn. This time I knew what I was looking at. The "shiny yellow material" was a bronze colored mica fairly common in that type of rock. And I did know gold when I saw it. When I told the group what I had seen, Dr. H. scoffed at me and just said that there was a lot of gold in that ore. That was the end of the meeting and as I drove home I had a feeling that the investors did not believe me.
The next morning I was very troubled about the previous afternoon's proceedings. To me, the Good Doctor's statements about the gold were clear proof that he was a fraud. I called Bill and told him what I had seen and what I thought. Bill didn't know what to think so I asked him if he could get me a sample of the ore, maybe through the investors. I was pretty sure that the Good Doctor would not give me a sample. I wanted to take a sample to a laboratory and have it tested. But first I had to find a lab that could test for platinum. Bill said that he would try to get a sample for me and we would talk later that day.
I made a number of telephone calls and finally found a laboratory in Fullerton that said they could test for platinum. I talked to Bill again late that afternoon. He said that the investors would get a sample of the ore and would leave it at our office after noon tomorrow which would be Wednesday. And then he added that they had scheduled a meeting with the Good Doctor for Friday evening somewhere in Long Beach at which time they would finalize the deal and deliver the money.
On Wednesday I drove into Beverly Hills and picked up the sample at our office and then drove to Fullerton to the lab. Normally there was about a three week wait to get the results from a mineral analysis. I talked to the lab manager and told him a little bit about the situation and asked if I could get the results on Friday. He was a nice fellow and very cooperative and after checking his lab schedules said that he could have the results sometime on Friday but that he would have to charge an extra fee to expedite the analysis. I told him to go ahead and I would pick up the results Friday afternoon.
Late Thursday morning Bill called me and said that the Good Doctor had called and said that he had to go to San Diego for an emergency situation on Friday. So they had moved the big meeting up to Thursday evening in Long Beach. Bells were going off in my head as I thought; "That sneaky bastard mormon". I asked Bill for the address where the meeting would be held. Bill gave me the address but said he did not have a phone number for the place. The meeting would be in a certain conference room and was scheduled for 7:30 PM.
I immediately called the lab manager in Fullerton, told him the situation, and begged him for results by that evening. He said that our analysis was scheduled for Friday and that they had a full schedule that Thursday afternoon. However, they could work late and try to get results for me sometime that evening. I told him "Please do that and cost is no object at this point. I will be at the lab this evening to pick up the results." He agreed to do his best to get it done.
I called the lab again early that evening and my friend said that their afternoon tests had run late but that they were about to get started on my samples. But it would take a couple hours. I paced the fl oor for a while and then drove to Fullerton to the laboratory. The tests were not complete yet but sometime shortly after nine o'clock we got the results. There was no trace of platinum nor anything else of value in the samples. I was not at all surprised.
Since I didn't have a phone number for the meeting place all I could do was jump in my car and drive as fast as I dared to Long Beach. I found the building and rushed to the conference room just as people were walking out of the room. The investors and Mike were just leaving but Dr. H. was gone. They all had been informed that I was getting lab tests that evening but they had not waited for the results. I showed the test results to the lead lady and Mike. The lead lady said; "Oh, but there must be some mistake. We have already given the money to Dr. Huntingdon." They apparently were so sold on the project that they did not want any facts to interfere.
The next morning we gathered at the Geonics office to try to figure out what to do next. Bill was placing calls to the Good Mormon Doctor's number but nobody was answering. Finally, near noon someone answered Dr. H.'s phone. The person told Bill that there had been a terrible accident on the way to San Diego and that Dr. Huntingdon was in critical condition in a hospital somewhere down there. But this person did not seem to know which hospital. So Bill spent the rest of the day contacting hospitals between Los Angeles and San Diego but none of them had any record of a Dr. Huntingdon. The Good Mormon Doctor's phone was never answered again and there appeared to be no trace of him anywhere. If anybody ever did locate him I did not hear about it. Unfortunately, the same things can be said about the Investors' $350,000. It disappeared along with the Good Mormon Doctor.
Catalogue Information
