%0 Journal Article
%T Obituary notice: Nestor J. SANDER
%A Bruno Granier
%J Carnets de G¨¦ologie
%D 2012
%I Carnets de G¨¦ologie
%X Nestor John Sander (December 5, 1914 - February 11, 2012), "Sandy" for his friends, was a living history book, describing himself as a positivist.Nestor was born and grew up in Oakland, California. In 1932, after graduating from high school, he moved on to the University of California at Berkeley where he earned a Bachelor degree in 1936, followed by a Masters degree in Paleontology in 1938. That same year he joined the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), an affiliate of the Standard Oil of California (SOCAL, today's Chevron Corporation), which later (in 1944) became the Arabian American Oil Company, that is ARAMCO. Nestor was sent as a junior geologist for his first assignment to Saudi Arabia. That was before World War II started and much before the country became known as the major worldwide oil producer. There he probably gained his nickname and entered into the history of petroleum exploration, for he was given responsibility for the delineation of the Abqaiq field, which led to Ghawar, that was to become the world's largest oilfield: Sander's name will remain associated with those of pioneering explorationists in the Middle East, including "Dick" Bramkamp (Sander, 1959), Robert G.S. Hudson, "Mike" Morton (Dunnington et al., 1959; Q.M. Morton, 2006), R.W. Powers (1968), Max Steineke (Steineke et al., 1958), W. Sugden (Sugden & Stranding, 1975), Ren¨¦ Wetzel (Dunnington et al., 1959), ... They are now almost forgotten for -with few notable exceptions- most of their work remains unpublished, being proprietary reports archived at their employers' headquarters.In 1941 Nestor joined the American army and was assigned to intelligence services in Northern Africa and Europe because he could speak and read French (as well as German, Italian and Spanish). In Paris, he met Georgette Cordin, and they were married in 1946. Later the same year, Nestor was back in Saudi Arabia, followed by "Georgia" a few months later. They lived in Dhahran until late 1951 when he was given new responsibilities which led them to move to New York. On their way back to America, they stopped in Paris for a three-month long leave. During this short entr'acte Nestor completed the writing and editing of the manuscript of his D.Sc. thesis and defended it publicly in front of a jury presided by Professor Jean Cuvillier in Sorbonne University in early 1952 (an abridged version in French was published in 1962: an unpublished English version of this early work will be available soon in Carnets de G¨¦ologie). In 1955 Nestor resigned from ARAMCO and joined CONORADA Petroleum Corporat
%K Sander
%K Cuvillier
%K Saudi Arabia
%K Lockhartia
%K Miscellanoides
%K Sakesaria.
%U http://paleopolis.rediris.es/cg/Nestor_Sander.html