Seismic Reflection: "Searching for Oil with Dynamite" 1936 Chevrolet Leader News Newsreel Vol. 2 No. 4

more at http://quickfound.net/

"Engineers X-Ray the Ground In Search for New Oil Beds" Produced by Jam Handy.

Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocarbon_exploration

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for deposits of hydrocarbons, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth using petroleum geology...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_seismology

Reflection seismology (or seismic reflection) is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earth's subsurface from reflected seismic waves. The method requires a controlled seismic source of energy, such as dynamite or Tovex blast, a specialized air gun or a seismic vibrator, commonly known by the trademark name Vibroseis. Reflection seismology is similar to sonar and echolocation. This article is about surface seismic surveys; for vertical seismic profiles, see VSP...

The Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden was the first to conceive of using reflected seismic waves to infer geology. His work was initially on the propagation of acoustic waves in water, motivated by the sinking of the Titanic by an iceberg in 1912. He also worked on methods of detecting submarines during World War I. He applied for the first patent on a seismic exploration method in 1914, which was issued in 1917. Due to the war, he was unable to follow up on the idea. John Clarence Karcher discovered seismic reflections independently while working for the United States Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) on methods of sound ranging to detect artillery. In discussion with colleagues, the idea developed that these reflections could aid in exploration for petroleum. With several others, many affiliated with the University of Oklahoma, Karcher helped to form the Geological Engineering Company, incorporated in Oklahoma in April, 1920. The first field tests were conducted near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1921.

Early reflection seismology was viewed with skepticism by many in the oil industry...

The Geological Engineering Company folded due to a drop in the price of oil. In 1925, oil prices had rebounded, and Karcher helped to form Geophysical Research Corporation (GRC) as part of the oil company Amerada. In 1930, Karcher left GRC and helped to found Geophysical Service Incorporated (GSI). GSI was one of the most successful seismic contracting companies for over 50 years and was the parent of an even more successful company, Texas Instruments...

Reflection seismology is used extensively in a number of fields and its applications can be categorised into three groups, each defined by their depth of investigation:

Near-surface applications – an application that aims to understand geology at depths of up to approximately 1 km, typically used for engineering and environmental surveys, as well as coal and mineral exploration. A more recently developed application for seismic reflection is for geothermal energy surveys, although the depth of investigation can be up to 2 km deep in this case.

Hydrocarbon exploration – used by the hydrocarbon industry to provide a high resolution map of acoustic impedance contrasts at depths of up to 10 km within the subsurface. This can be combined with seismic attribute analysis and other exploration geophysics tools and used to help geologists build a geological model of the area of interest.

Mineral exploration...