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... to assist in identifying potential areas for drilling. Thus, surface mapping of outcrops of sedimentary beds makes possible the interpretation of subsurface features, which can then be supplemented with information obtained by drilling into the crust and retrieving cores or samples of the rock layers encountered. In addition, increasingly sophisticated seismic techniques-the reflection and refraction of sound waves propagated through the earth-reveal details of the structure and interrelationship of various layers in the subsurface. Ultimately, however, the only way to prove that oil is present in the subsurface is to drill a well. In fact, most of the oil provinces in the world have initially been identified by the presence of surface seeps, and most of the actual reservoirs have been discovered by so-called wildcatters who relied perhaps as much on intuition as on science. (The term wildcatter comes from West Texas, where in the early 1920s drilling crews encountered ...