Searching for Oil Using High-Tech Scanners

by Alex A. Kecskes

Scientists at Adrok, Edinburgh, Scotland, have developed a technique called Atomic Dielectric Resonance (ADR) to detect and measure onshore oil reservoirs—from the surface of land, water or airborne platforms. Devised as a scanner that uses radio and microwaves to reveal oil deposits at depths of up to 4km, the new scanner reduces the need to drill test wells.

Detecting oil reservoirs from the air means you can survey much larger areas very quickly. In operation, the scanner sends radio and microwaves into the ground, then measures the resonance of electrons in the mineral atoms and the energy change that occurs as the signals are returned by the different layers of rock.

The problem with devices used up till now was that the EM waves were simply soaked up when they hit the ground. The new technology exploits beam resonance and its interaction with the materials in the ground. It creates a series of ‘virtual boreholes’ at different points in the area, then extrapolates the data to determine the size and depth of the deposit.