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I think you're right about salt domes and oil. I'm probably wrong about the densities as well. Everything I know was what I picked up from my (non-geologist) fa
by mbenjaminsmith 16y ago
I think you're right about salt domes and oil. I'm probably wrong about the densities as well. Everything I know was what I picked up from my (non-geologist) father over beers.
I don't think it's the drilling itself as much as it is the in/accessibility of the site. They were usually doing surveys in the Andes or the Amazon river basin. Not exactly friendly territory.
They lost two crews while in South America. Mountains, bad weather and an expensive/tight schedule are a bad combination. He said they could never know where they went down, so they would watch the villages to see where airplane parts hit the markets. Pretty sad stuff.
- stcredzero 16y agoI wonder if this is an area where drone aircraft would be useful?
- jarek 16y agoLikely. This is subject to the usual caveats that come into play when dealing with drone aircraft: availability of technology and cost. In particular, I doubt it would have been feasible to do this with drones back when mbenjaminsmith's father was working on this (or at least I got the impression this was a fair while ago). And even now, since the primary users of the technology are still military and other government agencies, it's not exactly cheap. Depending on how the company values a life and what are the estimates of risk, it might not happen for a while.
- stcredzero 16y agoI suspect that the economics will play out much like ROV submersibles. Over the long term, operating and insurance costs will be much less for the drones.