doodlebugger
(slang, by extension) A geophysicist working in the field to explore oil or other natural resources.
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(slang, by extension) A geophysicist working in the field to explore oil or other natural resources.
: This was a "doodlebugger," a man who searches for oil with divining rods of wondrous shapes and descriptions. And not just any doodlebugger, but one of the hottest noses in the amateur oil-sniffing game – Walter J. Nelson.
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(slang) A dowser searching for subterranean natural resources such as water or oil.
1963, December 7, William Trombley, “The dowser who finds oil wells”, The Saturday Evening Post, issue 43, page 88:
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- doodlebugging77%
American slang for using dowsing rods, divining rods, or other pseudoscientific instruments to try to locate underground oil or gas deposits. The term comes from the oil industry of the early twentieth century, when 'doodlebug' referred to any unscientific or dubious prospecting method. Wildcat oil drillers and petroleum speculators who relied on such methods were met with equal parts amusement and suspicion by those who preferred geological surveys.
- doodlebugging70%
(US) dowsing in search of petroleum.
- bug-man66%
(US, petroleum industry, slang, dated) A micropaleontologist, particularly a foraminiferologist.
- doodlebug64%
(informal, British) The V-1 flying bomb.