Pumpjack Near the Badlands in Dunn County, North Dakota

Dunn County sits atop the Bakken formation, one of the largest contiguous oil deposits in the United States, spanning parts of western North Dakota and eastern Montana. The pumpjack converts rotational motion from an electric or gas motor into the vertical pumping action needed to lift crude oil from wells that can run thousands of feet deep. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, widely adopted across the Bakken starting in the mid-2000s, turned this stretch of the state into one of the fastest-growing oil-producing regions in the country. Dunn County borders Theodore Roosevelt National Park's badlands terrain, placing active drilling operations near some of North Dakota's most rugged protected land.

Taken July 2018