17-12 Rising Oil. Benjamin Smith Lyman (1835-1920), a Globetrotter Geoscientist in the Japanese Oil Fields

Session: One Century of Oil and Gas in the Permian Basin

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This presentation explores the transnational and interdisciplinary dimensions of Benjamin Smith Lyman’s pioneering geological work in Meiji-era Japan, focusing on his oil exploration efforts between 1873 and 1879.

His career offers a compelling case study in the global circulation of geological knowledge during the nineteenth century. Trained at Harvard, the École Impériale des Mines in Paris, and the Freiberg Mining Academy in Saxony, and with prior experience in the oil fields of California and British India, Lyman embodied a mobile scientific identity shaped by diverse intellectual traditions and field practices.

Lyman’s early work in the U.S. included also coal surveys in Pennsylvania and Nova Scotia, and his pioneering use of structure contour mapping - first applied in his 1870 oil survey of the Punjab region, British India - marked a methodological innovation that bridged field observation and cartographic abstraction. His subsequent appointment by the Japanese government (1872-1881) as a foreign advisor to lead geological surveys in Hokkaido and Honshu further illustrates how geology operated across political and cultural frontiers.

Drawing on archival sources, field reports, and unpublished correspondence, this paper reconstructs Lyman’s contributions to the mapping and development of Japan’s early oil fields, particularly in Hokkaidō and Niigata. It highlights how Lyman’s work integrated field and laboratory practices and fostered knowledge transfer through the training of Japanese assistants -several of whom became foundational figures in Japan’s geological community.

            His work connected field and laboratory, science and state policy, and local labor with global expertise. By situating Lyman’s career within a broader framework of global scientific exchange, the paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how geology operated across cultural and political borders in the nineteenth century.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-11119

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