Arabian Peninsula. Map I-270 B-1.

£7,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

The first edition of this highly significant map of the Arabian Peninsula. Produced by the US Geological Survey for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Arabian-American Oil Company (Aramco), it was the first accurate geologic and geographic map to show the entire peninsula and was central to the resource exploration and development of the following decades. Dr. Glen Francis Brown (1911-2001) first travelled to Saudi Arabia in 1945 after being selected to locate water supplies in its deserts. He so impressed King Abdulaziz that he was asked to return in 1950, as head of a project backed by a partnership of the Saudi government, the US Geological Survey and Aramco. As vast amounts of oil had been discovered by that point the task was multifaceted: “to conduct reconnaissance geologic mapping, mineral evaluation, and water-resource studies in the western and central parts of the Kingdom.” (Reinemund, Memorial to Glen F. Brown , p.37). Over the course of several years Brown’s team surveyed the whole of the country and produced a series of regional geologic and geographic maps at a scale of 1:500,000, which were used for further exploration and the planning of new infrastructure. It was then decided the survey should be extended to the rest of the peninsula, and that a general map was required to contextualise the regional examples. The present map is the fruit of Brown’s efforts, combining his team’s surveys with the best available data and other cartographic sources to achieve th

• Year: 1958

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