George Martin Lees MC DFC FRS[2] (16 April 1898 – 5 January 1955) was a British soldier, geologist and leading authority on the geology of the Middle East.
Following studies at the Royal School of Mines, he joined the Anglo-Persian Oil Company as an Assistant Geologist, despite having no formal qualifications,[6] and returned to the Middle East in 1922.
[7] De Böckh and Lees later published the theoretical side of their work in the paper The Structure of Asia, edited by J. W. Gregory and presented to the British Association in 1928.
However, Hugh Wilson, a leading proponent of the 'in-situ' theory that these igneous rocks had essentially flowed into position, observed that the major displacement surfaces were not prominent in the field and that he had seen more evidence of extension than compression in the Oman Mountains.
[15] After his assignment to Bahrain, Lees proceeded to Qatar to fend off the interest of Major Frank Holmes who had approached the sheikh for an oil concession.
Lees visited Doha and made a one-day trip to a few outcrops of Qatar, which he rightly identified as Eocene limestone exposed on the crest of a gently-dipping anticline.
From 1928 to 1930, Lees examined the company organisation and oil prospects in Germany, Canada, Egypt and the United States, as well as surveying fields in Kermanshah and Iraqi Kurdistan.
During the 1930s, although the international spread of exploration was reduced, he was responsible for mapping the company's entire concessionary area and selecting the most promising 100,000 square miles (260,000 km2) in accordance with the concession agreement of 1933.
Although his efforts were not rewarded by conspicuous commercial results during his lifetime, limited success was achieved at Eakring in Nottinghamshire where the first British oilfield provided useful supplies during World War II.
De Golyer made the memorable prediction that the centre of gravity of world oil production was shifting from the Gulf Caribbean area to the Middle East.
[20] In the Second Presidential Address to members of the Geological Society in 1953, Lees described his vision of the wonders of geology: "I have sat in contemplation on the Kerry rocks of south-western Ireland and seen the great Hercynian ranges warping downwards through a magnificent fiord phase of drowned valleys into the water of the Atlantic; I have observed with awe and wonder the inspiring view of the Armorican ranges confidently striking into the turbulent Atlantic at the Point du Raz, Finistère, and I have seen the great Atlas Mountains with their component subdivisions heading strongly seaward; I have seen the Arabian and Indian coasts, made a complete circuit of Australia and traversed the Pacific; I have seen the Californian edge of the American continent and the great drowned valleys of the British Columbian coasts; I have seen the bevelled stumps of the one time mountains of Nova Scotia striking freely into the Atlantic and I have traversed the eastern seaboard of the United States to the point of Florida and the Antilles loop to Trinidad and into Venezuela.