As often happens…

All photos P/C Dan. July 8, 2022

… I went for a run and spotted something remarkable hovering just behind the trees on the side of the road. This time, I was jogging down a quiet country road in eastern Pennsylvania, in the middle of the Pocono mountain range, about 85 miles (136 km) due northwest of Manhattan. It was a perfect day to run–cool, quiet, deep forest on both sides of the road. Naturally, I had to stop for a few minutes, take a few pictures, and save my SRS for later.

As you can see, this is a very large, very rusty, very old drilling rig that was abandoned years ago. It’s at least 60 feet (20 m) tall, and has several large wheels at the bottom.

And, naturally, my curiosity was piqued: What was this? Why is it here? How long ago?

The pictures shown here are all of some kind of drilling rig. These images are all from 41°16’52.9″N, 75°19’16.1″W (41.2813694, -75.323322).

Those form the basis of the SearchResearch Challenge for this week.

1. What kind of rig is this? (Is it drilling for water? Oil? Gas?)

2. When was this drilling rig first setup?

3. Who owns this thing? And what’s its current status? (Obviously, it’s not in operating condition–but it might still be a viable well.)

Can you find out the answers to these mysteries? The enquiring mind wants to know!

It didn’t take me too long to find out, but the process was–as we say here in SRS-land–really interesting!

When you figure it out, please leave a comment in the thread below. Let us know HOW you found out!

Search on!

P.S. I’ll be traveling over the next two weeks, so I might not be able to give the full and complete answer next Wednesday. Hang on–I’ll be back, and I’ll return with even more interesting and exotic SRS Challenges for us!