โ Scribed by R.H.O.
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Plant Engineering, Vol. 44, No. IO.) Geophysicists, in searching for oil, believe gamma rays, radiated by the varying rock formations thousands of feet under ground, will provide a tool for finding more than enough oil to meet increasing demands for petroleum products.
Oil-well logging by radioactivity, which transmits accurate measurements of these gamma-ray radiations foot by foot down through the well for exact recording on the surface, may open up new vistas of oil discovery. Records of wells that already have been cased with pipe can be taken.
This characteristic, it is hoped, will make it possible to find oil formations at other levels in old wells and fields. Extent of such previously-missed formations is unknown, but it is believed that many wells were drilled which completely overlooked valuable formations, or noted them so inaccurately that they could not be found again readily.
Radioactivity logging works because every substance is in some degree radioactive.
With the development of modern methods of amplifying and measuring these rays, it has become possible to chart variations in ray intensity from rock formations down through a well. Gamma rays, rather than the more familiar alpha and beta rays, are measured because they have short wave-lengths and can penetrate iron pipe. Added to the magnetometer, the torsion balance, the seismograph, the mass spectrograph, the electric log, the core barrel, the aerial camera, and the host of other recently-developed oil-exploration instruments and techniques, well logging by radioactivity is further proof that America's oil men will continue to find oil for years.
R. H. 0.
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