Myself at the drill site. That behind me is the kind of rig you need for drilling to over 15,000 ft in over-pressured rocks. Those white boxes on the sides of it are trailer-home sized.
The full height of the rig, with geologists in the foreground for scale.
Brand new, out-of-the box drill bit.
A burned out bit (after a few days of use)
The company man lectures the geologists on pipes.
Looking up the tower -- drilling rigs have towers so they can use long lengths of drill pipe (the drilling shaft is actually a hollow pipe) without having to spend as much time attaching and detaching pipes from one another. You can see some lengths of drill pipe ready to go on the right hand side of the photo.
Myself on the drilling floor. The drilling floor is high up off the ground to leave room for the various blowout protectors. The floor is where everything in the drill string gets threaded together or taken apart.
This yellow thing is the motor. There are 8 diesel generators, each one the size of a tractor trailor, that all run at once to give it power.
Some of the offices in Houston where they try to keep the nerds most of the time.
