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Diamond drilling was one of the most important, yet under-researched mechanical technologies to be introduced during the late nineteenth century. A relatively simple arrangement, it was designed on a principle first explored by the ancient Greeks using a round, hollow drill-bit, tipped with rough diamonds, working by rotation rather than impact, to cut through rock and extract an intact ‘core’ of the ground through which it passed.

It provided the first opportunity for exploration geologists and miners to ‘see’ into the underlying geological strata, without the costly and time-consuming process of sinking man-sized shafts and tunnels. It proved critical to the discovery and development of the world’s non-surface exposing mineral deposits – such as the great Minnesota iron range – and thus facilitated the great outpouring of metalliferous minerals that has supplied world industrialization.

Later it became the principal method for discovering and producing oil, and today it provides the base technology for fracking. As we begin the exploration of the moon, mars and the planets and asteroids around us, it continues to provide the main means of examining the surface and the rocks below.

About the Speaker

Professor Roger Burt is the Emeritus Professor of Mining History at the University of Exeter and past President of the American Mining History Association and the International Mining History Congress.

Professor Burt has published numerous books and articles on mining history in the UK and overseas and his forthcoming book on Cornish mining during the early twentieth century, to be published later this year, discusses many of the issues raised in this lecture.