Reg Sprigg shakes up geological history and advances mapping during work for South Australian mines dept
Geologist Reg Sprigg examining mineral drill core samples. During his time with the South Australian government mines department,Sprigg pushed for more detailed geological maps such as the overview of South Australia (right) from 1953.
Young geologist Reg Sprigg made a world-history-shaking fossil discovery, along with pushing other advances, during his 10 years (1944-54) at the South Australian Geological Survey and state government mines departmen,
Gaining a bachelor (1942) and master of science (1944) degrees as a precociously brilliant student at Adelaide University, Sprigg enlisted during World II with the Royal Australian Engineers and worked with munitions (1941-41). He was seconded to the soils division of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) at the Waite Agricultural Institute in Adelaide until 1943.
From the next year, Sprigg worked for the South Australian Geological Survey to reopen the Radium Hill uranium field in South Australian’s northeast and to map the Mount Painter uranium field at Arkaroola Station in the northern Flinders Ranges. The search for uranium, needed for the Manhattan atomic bormb project in the United States of America, was enthusiastically supported by South Australian premier Tom Payford.
Sprigg was sent by the South Australian government in 1946 to inspect abandoned mines in the Ediacaran Hills to see whether old mines could be reworked profitably using new technologies. There, apparently while eating his lunch, he noticed very ancient fossils that he realised were early Cambrian or possibly Precambrian age. He thought the organisms had probably been jellyfishes.
After a paper on the fossils submitted to the journal Nature was rejected, Sprigg went to London to present his findings to the 1948 International Geological Congress – again failing to excite interest or belief. Work by professor Martin Glaessner at Adelaide University eventually showed the fossils were from the latest Precambrian age and were organic. This saw the Ediacaran, the first new geological period created in more than a 100 years, recognised in 2004.
Sprigg’s work during his time at South Australian government mines department on the Adelaide Geosyncline also culminated with a brilliant sedimentological and tectonic overview that was more than 20 years ahead of its time. Much of this work was left in an unfinished doctoral thesis.
Sprigg’s frenetic activity during these years also saw advances within the South Australian government mines department. As he department’s first chief of geological mapping, Reg argued successfully for peacetime air photo coverage of South Australia using the most advanced technology and provided a firm foundation for geological mapping at 1:63,360 scale in Australia.
Australia launched a national effort to develop its own oil reserves immediately after World War II. From 1949, Sprigg led the South Australian mines department’s new regional mapping section, increasing his knowledge of South Australia’s mineral and petroleum potential.
By 1954, Sprigg was impatient with the limits of government employment. He also became tantalised by the prospects for petroleum discovery in South Australia after the Rough Range discovery in Western Australia. Sprigg bravely left a permanent job with only limited guarantees for employment from a company that wasn’t yet created: the fledging South Australia North Territory Oil Search: SANTOS.
