Olaf Holm Eimar Soot was born on 16 February 1857 in
Sørum, in the county of
Akershus, Norway (now part of the municipality of
Lillestrøm). He completed the
artium (a university preparatory examination equivalent to secondary graduation) in 1876 and later trained as an engineer. Toward the end of the nineteenth century he emigrated to
Argentina, where he worked as a topographer—combining the roles of surveyor and cartographer—in scientific exploration and mapping projects in the
Patagonia and
Andes regions. He joined the Topographic Section of the
La Plata Museum and collaborated with the Argentine Boundary Commission led by
Francisco Pascasio Moreno. During these expeditions he worked alongside other European scientists and technicians active in Argentina, including Norwegian topographers Adolfo Schiörbeck and Theodor Arneberg, as well as the Swiss-born naturalist
Santiago Roth. Their missions involved topographical, geological and exploratory work in several regions of the country, including
Catamarca,
La Rioja,
San Juan,
Río Negro, and areas around the
Limay River and
Collón Curá River, as well as the surroundings of
Nahuel Huapi Lake. In 1897 he was officially appointed as an assistant in the Argentine commission responsible for the demarcation of the boundary with Chile. He carried out various topographic measurements in the Andean region, some of which were recorded in Moreno's publications, including barometric observations and altitude measurements at sites such as Angostura and the Chilchuma stream. == Participation in the demarcation of the 1902 award ==