Oil Drilling
Friday, April 3rd, 2009The world economy depends a lot on oil drilling. It’s been around for a long time. Despite the wishes of many alternative energy proponents, it will likely be around for a long time in the future.
In 347 AD the Chinese became the first known people to begin oil drilling. Drilling was accomplished with bits on long bamboo poles, and only went as deep as about 800 feet. The oil was often utilized to boil salt water so pure salt could be harvested. 700 years later there were bamboo pipelines running from oil wells to salt springs. Writings from the time discuss homes heated with piped in natural gas.
Oil drilling was prominent in Asia and the middle east. The Japanese called petroleum burning water. The streets of Baghdad were paved with tar in the 8th century. The Persians lit their homes with kerosene lamps. Already, many people depended on oil.
Marco Polo wrote about oil drilling in Azerbaijan. He visited the area in 1264. He related seeing oil being carried away by the ship load. In fact, he said he saw hundreds of ships at a time, carrying away petroleum. He described abundant fountains of oil.
Early oil drilling was percussive. The tools were hammered into place. Rotary drilling later could reach much deeper. In fact a Russian bore hole, called the Kola Superdeep Borehole, sought to drill as deeply as possible with a rotary drill. It reach 38,000 feet into the Earth.
There’s a legend about the Kola oil drilling project. The legend goes that when they reached a cavity 9 miles deep scientists investigated. A microphone recorded the wailing of souls trapped in hell, suffering 2000 degree heat . In reality the scientists had found temperatures around 360 degrees F, and some geographic anomalies. But they hadn’t found hell.
This legend of finding hell while oil drilling has become famous. Stories complete with pictures ran in all the tabloid newspapers. Sound files appeared on the Internet. A Christian network called TBN breathlessly described that hell had been proven . It all stemmed from a deliberate mistranslation of a Norwegian article. Even TBN knew it was fake, but they decided to run the story.
Everyone knows about oil drilling in the modern world. Offshore sites even drill in oceans, lakes and seas. Maybe they should look for hell there.
http://drillingnow.com/