[pravus]

This is interesting. Part of my life was working with a water well driller running a rig for my grand-father's business a long time ago. The technique is virtually identical but with a hydraulic lift for running the drill and uses compressed air to clear the bore.

The first step was to find the location and park the drilling rig so it wouldn't sink once the well was dug. Then you'd raise the drill arm, attach a section of pipe and the drill head. You'd lower it down into a round flange that had an opening to one side where all of the cuttings blew out. My job was to shovel the cuttings into a trench to direct water flow once you hit the water line. It was critical to keep water from getting under the tires of the rig.

Each section of pipe is 20 feet long and as you drill in you detach the rig head, raise it, get another section of pipe from a rotating carousel and then start grinding again. Once done you pull all the pipe by basically doing the reverse and then perform a similar operation to push casing down into the hole. When the rig pulls away you have a round hole in the ground ready to have another truck come in to insert an electric pump with all the wiring. Then you box everything up at the top and say job done.

Oil field drilling is pretty similar as well but the rigs are vastly larger and move way more earth much faster. My dad worked on a rough necking crew and I've been exposed to the oil and gas industry most of my life so this is an interesting tangent.