From the Archives: Dynamite divining rod finds oil

In the 1930s, a new technology called seismic reflection helped locate Southern California oil fields. This technology was nicknamed the “earthquake echo” method. Today it is known as reflection seismology.

Writer William S. Barton pointed out in a Aug. 14, 1938, Los Angeles Times article that, “Previously only six out of every 100 wells drilled became producers. But with the guidance of the new divining rod about twenty-seven out of every 100 gush black dividends.”

Barton explained the process:

The drill-truck gang has completed drilling a six-inch hole that may be from sixty to 400 feet deep. The men from the explosion truck have placed from a sixteenth of a pound to ten pounds of dynamite sticks in the hole bottom. Now it’s the turn of the water-truck crew to fill the hole with water and mud in order to increase the downward thrust of the blast. Fifty yards away is the instrument truck, the traveling laboratory in which the echoes, transformed first into electric impulses, and then light, are photographed.

From this truck heavily insulated wires have been strung along the ground and through the weeds for a distance of perhaps 100 yards. There may be as many as nineteen wires. Each wire leads to from one to three peculiar objects, which, set squarely on the earth, look like lead bombs. These are specially designed microphones which “hear” the miniature quake echoes. …

Near the end of his story, Barton points out that, ”The dynamite divining rod made possible the discovery of the great Wilmington field, which produced 3 million barrels of crude a month, one of the largest productions of any field in California. And in the Bakersfield area, it discovered the Ten Sections, Canal, Wasco and Rio Bravo fields.

These two photos accompanied Barton’s story in the Aug. 14, 1938, Los Angeles Times.