Pumpjack Machinery Above the Badlands Near Medora

Pumpjacks like this one dot the Bakken Formation, the shale oil region beneath western North Dakota that fueled one of the largest U.S. oil booms of the 21st century. A gearbox and counterweight system converts the rotation of an electric motor into the up-and-down stroke of a sucker rod, which drives a pump thousands of feet underground. Many Bakken wells reach the oil-bearing shale by drilling vertically more than two miles before turning horizontal to follow the rock layer for another mile or more. The badlands terrain surrounding Theodore Roosevelt National Park sits atop some of the same formation, placing working oil sites directly adjacent to protected parkland.