MIT 150: The Top 50

Number 32: Drill, baby, drill Back in the day, the techniques for finding new oil deposits were simple: Drill hole. If you didn’t find anything, move over and repeat. In 1948, MIT researchers were among the first to apply modern scientific analysis to reports of seismic activity to create a chance above a “shot in the dark” in hitting pay dirt. Formalized as the Geophysical Analysis Group in 1952, the collaboration spurred the “digital revolution” in oil prospecting.
Mira Oberman/AFP/Getty Images

E-mail this article

Invalid E-mail address
Invalid E-mail address

Sending your article

Your article has been sent.

Number 32: Drill, baby, drill

Back in the day, the techniques for finding new oil deposits were simple: Drill hole. If you didn’t find anything, move over and repeat. In 1948, MIT researchers were among the first to apply modern scientific analysis to reports of seismic activity to create a chance above a “shot in the dark” in hitting pay dirt. Formalized as the Geophysical Analysis Group in 1952, the collaboration spurred the “digital revolution” in oil prospecting.