He was giving the honor of driving a purely symbolic wood stake prior to start of drilling the actual oil well by the Atlantic Richfield Corporation, his employer.
He painted animals and birds and was recognized with awards from The National Park Service[1] Marvin Mangus was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
In summer 1962 the family moved again, this time to Anchorage, Alaska, where Mangus and three other employees served as the Alaskan staff of Atlantic.
As a field geologist, he traveled to Guatemala, Bolivia, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories of Canada, before finally settling in Anchorage, Alaska in 1962.
Mangus mapped the entire Arctic North Slope from the Brooks Range, starting at Cape Lisburne, over to the 141st meridian.
After a merger of Atlantic with Richfield, and the creation of ARCO, Mangus and his colleagues were able to convince the company leadership in Dallas, including CEO Robert Orville Anderson, to drill an exploratory well at Prudhoe Bay.
Mangus, as an ARCO geologist, was given the honor of driving a wood stake for the landmark drilling sites for the discovery and confirmation wells of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field.
Sweets' book summarizes history of geologic exploration in Alaska and the details leading to The Discovery of Oil at Prudhoe Bay.
Robert O. Anderson announced Sag River confirmation well or proof that Prudhoe Bay had oil in July 1968.
Calderwood had served as President of the Petroleum Club of Anchorage,[3] and Mangus maintained his professional affiliations until his own death.
Mangus was a Plein Air painter, and whenever possible, he carried his painting supplies into the field to record what he saw and experienced.
Mangus completed paintings of most places that he lived or visited, and worked in the media of oils, cassein, acrylics, and watercolor.
Although he is best known for his Alaskan images, he often painted scenes from many other locales, including the East Coast/Pennsylvania, Guatemala, Alberta areas where he lived or visited such as Hawaii.
Mangus' artwork has been exhibited in numerous venues, including the Corcoran Gallery of Washington D.C., the Smithsonian Museum Area Show, the Arts Club of Washington, the Baltimore Watercolor Society, All-Alaska Juried shows, and the Centennial Traveling Art Exhibition.
"Breakup, Matanuska Valley, Alaska," was made as a fund raiser for The United Methodist Church, and features a lake with ice melting in the spring.
The second, titled "Point Lay, AlaskaP8", was made for PBS Anchorage, Alaska Channel 6 as a fund raiser, and depicts a salmon-drying rack.
The third was a print of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier sailing into Cook Inlet, Alaska, created in the mid-nineties to commemorate a special 4 July weekend shore leave.
The US Navy supplied the equipment thus, After World War Two, surplus amphibious M29 Weasel, collapsible boats, bush planes, and C-Rations were used by Mangus and his USGS colleagues, Robert "Bob" L. Detterman, William P. Brosge, Bill Patton, Tom Dutro and others.
Some trips were planned in advance so as to use a river flowing downstream for transportation, and then the collapsible boats would be dropped by bush plane.
As a result of the crash, he had back surgery in Canada and the long-term effects of a fused spine bothered him for the remainder of his life.