Einstein Never Knew He’d Help Shell Discover Oil

Albert Einstein suggested a century ago that large-scale cosmic violence—two black holes colliding, for example—might send gravitational ripples through the universe like a stone disturbing the surface of a pond. In September physicists in the U.S. conclusively detected gravitational waves for the first time, again proving Einstein right. While it’s a safe assumption he wasn’t thinking about how building a wave observatory might lead to finding oil and gas, two physicists in Amsterdam have started a company betting they can.

Innoseis’s prototype seismic sensor, not much bigger than a fist, looks like a box with a golf tee sticking out of it. Royal Dutch Shell, which is testing Innoseis’s sensors, hopes the lightweight, wireless technology can replace its standard surveying equipment. Each of Shell’s $100 million seismic explorations requires about 100,000 11-pound sensors, strung together with 6,000 miles of cable. Innoseis’s model, which is stomped into the ground every few yards, would in theory let the oil company deploy 1 million 1-pound sensors, covering much more ground, for the same price.