--> Abstract: Drake Was Not the First, #90907 (2000)

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ABSTRACT: Drake Was Not the First

William R. Brice , Geology & Planetary Science, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, [email protected]

As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Drake well discovery in 1859, we should celebrate his accomplishment, but, at the same time, realize that Edwin Drake was not the first to search for oil, nor the first to discover it using drilling technology. Oil and natural gas were both exploited by the human race for thousands of years. Throughout the middle east and the far east there is a record of oil production and its contribution to the local economies dating back to the time of Babylon where asphalt was used as a building material. The Chinese were drilling to depths of over 600 meters over 2000 years ago. Distilled petroleum was used as a weapon of war during the Crusades, and its medicinal value was touted for as long as the oil could be gathered from the surface. The native peoples of the Americas had used petroleum for many years before the Europeans arrived.

Even in North America Drake was not the first to get oil from the ground by drilling. The Ruffner brothers who developed the idea of drilling, instead of digging, wells in 1806 found oil as well as salt water. Fredonia, New York lighted its street with natural gas in 1825. In the 1840s near Pittsburgh, many salt wells were producing a "waste" which was used medicinally or allowed to run off into the canal system. At least two years before Drake's discovery, in Canada the strata around Enniskillen was yielding enough petroleum that it was sold and exported to the United States for illumination purposes. Thus, while the oil industry as we know it began after Drake's discovery, he was not the first to seek petroleum from the earth.

 

Search and Discovery Article #90907©2000 AAPG Eastern Section Meeting, London, Ontario, Canada