Ohio Geological Society Honorary Member - John Robert Lockett

The past few years, I've been writing biographies of geologists who have been awarded Honorary Membership by the Ohio Geological Society. Because of various website reorganizations, these biographies were never republished to the website or never released on the website (https://www.ohiogeosoc.org/). I thought I would release these biographies through my blog, in order to help recognise the important work that these geologists had done in Ohio.

                                                                                                                                                              

Ohio Geological Society Honorary Member 

John Robert “Bob” Lockett (1895 – 1968) 

By James McDonald 

Bob Lockett was born in Greenville, Ohio, on November 11, 1895 to Robert Elmer Lockett and Cordelia May Lockett (nee Garver) and was the third of six children. His father was a machinist in a factory who moved the family from Greenville, Ohio to Muncie, Indiana by 1910. By the mid-1910s, the family was living in Columbus, Ohio, where Bob graduated from North High School in 1916. After High School graduation, Bob went to work in the oil exploration industry. At the time that he was required to register for the WWI draft on June 5, 1917, he was running surveying instruments for the Empire Gas and Fuel Company (which eventually became Cities Services) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

He was drafted into the regular Army on June 19, 1917 at the Columbus Barracks, when he was 21 7/12th years old. He served in the Headquarters Company, 11th Field Artillery until his honorable discharge on July 2, 1919. He started as a Private 1st Class, promoted to Corporal on October 28, 1917, promoted to Sergeant on June 20, 1918, and promoted to Regimental Sergeant Major on October 9, 1918. He served in the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) from July 19, 1918 to July 2, 1919 and fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. 

After his service in the Army, he attended the Ohio State University, where he majored in Geology. After graduation he first went to work for the East Ohio Gas Company and was working with them in 1927 when he published his first major paper on the petroleum geology within Ohio. In 1930, he went to work for Ohio Fuel Gas Company (the predecessor of Columbia Gas). By the late 1940s to 1950, he had left the Ohio Fuel Gas Company and was working as a consultant. In 1954, he began working for the Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, first as a district geologist in Marietta, Ohio, then finally back in Columbus, Ohio. He finally retired from the Great Lakes Carbon Corporation. 

During the time period between the world wars (1917-1945), there was a dearth of information and research concerning the petroleum geology of Ohio. After the discovery of the Spindletop field in Texas in 1901, Ohio was thought to be an oil-producing backwater area of the country when compared to Texas and Oklahoma. In addition, there were no extensive public repository of oil and gas data; most of the oil and gas data were held by the private companies operating in Ohio. Bob Lockett was one of the few industry geologists who published research on the petroleum geology of Ohio. The Ohio Fuel Gas and its parallel company, the Preston Oil Company, were one of the largest oil and gas operators in Ohio during the time period between the world wars. His employment, first at the East Ohio Gas Company, and more importantly at the Ohio Fuel Gas Company, gave Bob Lockett access to a tremendous amount of private data that was not available to the public or to other geologists in private industry. Starting in 1924, he began to present and publish articles on petroleum geology within Ohio. He published a paper in the first AAPG Memoir on the General structure of the producing sands in eastern Ohio. He also published papers on the Clinton sandstone and the Oriskany Sandstone in Ohio. By the 1940s, Bob Lockett had become a well-known petroleum geologist and an expert in the petroleum geology of Ohio. 

He was a elected to membership of the Ohio Academy of Science in 1931, was a member of AAPG, and a member of the Appalachian Geological Society, where he served as President in 1940 and 1941. Bob Lockett was a founding member of the Ohio Geological Society and was awarded the first honorary membership by the Ohio Geological Society. 

Bob Lockett died on October 16, 1968 in Westerville, Ohio. His remains were donated to the Ohio State University Medical Center, and his ashes were scattered near the current Fawcett Center on the Ohio State University campus. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lockett, J. R., 1924, Notes on Clinton sandstone in Ohio: National Petroleum News, vol. 16, no. 44, p. 73. 

Lockett, J. R., 1927, General structure of the producing sands in eastern Ohio: AAPG Bulletin, v. 11, no. 10, p. 1023-1033

Lockett, J.R., 1929, General structure of the producing sands in eastern Ohio, in Structure of typical American oil fields: AAPG Memoir 1, p. 138-147

Lockett, J.R., 1937, The Oriskany sand in Ohio, in Oriskany sand symposium, Sep. 1937: Appalachian Geological Society, p. 61-64.

Lockett, J.R., 1938, Structural significance of the Cincinnati Arch: Oil & Gas Journal. v. 36, no. 44, p. 55

Lockett, J.R., 1939, Development of structures in the basin areas of the northeastern United States: Geological Society of America Bulletin. v. 50, no. 12, Part 2, p. 1984

Lockett, J.R., 1941, Developments in Appalachian Area during 1940 [abs.]: AAPG Bulletin, v. 25, no. 5, p. 945

Lockett, J.R., 1944, Surface geologic prospecting, in Symposium on geological prospecting for oil and gas in the Appalachian area: West Virginia University Bulletin, v. 3-II, p. 131-134.

Lockett, J.R., 1947, Development of structures in basin areas of northeastern United States: AAPG Bulletin, v. 31, no. 3, p. 429-446.

Lockett, J.R., 1948, Developments in Ohio in 1947: AAPG Bulletin, v. 25, no. 5, p. 907-908

Lockett, J.R., 1949, Introduction to the petroleum geology of the Clinton sand in Ohio: Appalachian Geological Society Bulletin, v. 1, p. 79-93.

Lockett, J.R., 1949, Developments in Ohio in 1948: AAPG Bulletin, v. 33, no. 6, p. 848-849

Lockett, J.R, 1953, Occurrence of natural gas in organic shale: Columbus, Ohio, 12 p.

Pepper, J.F., Thomas, G.T., Lockett, J.R., 1953, Geologic cross-section across northern Ohio: Pittsburgh Geological Society, Committee for Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Stout, W.E., Gillespie, J. S.; Lamborn, R.E., Lockett, J.R.; Ring, D.T., 1935, Natural gas in central and eastern Ohio, in Geology of natural gas: Pan-American Geologist. (1935) p. 897-914.