I have heard in my travels across the midwest the word “Doodlebugger”, a quack who professes to be able to mysteriously find oil. As I research new methods to help find oil, I am always skeptical, but recently came across technology that seems very promising: Hyperspectral Imaging.
So what is hyperspectral imaging? In layman’s terms it measures the elemental signature at the earths surface. From data collected from satellites, the earth’s surface is portrayed in millions of different colored pixels. Each pixel is a fingerprint of the chemical elements and molecular compounds found. Studies have shown that hydrocarbon seepage can be found at the earths surface and creates what we view as “hotspots” that warrant further analysis. This technology up until recently was only used by the big boys in the oil industry, but now can be reasonably added to an exploration budget of most small indepedent oil explorers.
One company in West Virginia, Quickstrike has utilized this technology plus other geochemistry to refine their search for oil/gas. Their sister company Geo-Max exploration has successfully built an impressive track record of...