Oil Boom Shifts The Landscape Of Rural North Dakota

WATFORD CITY, ND - JULY 28: Ray Gerish, a floor hand for Raven Drilling, works on an oil rig drilling into the Bakken shale formation on July 28, 2013 outside Watford City, North Dakota. North Dakota has been experiencing an oil boom in recent years, due in part to new drilling techniques including hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. In April 2013, The United States Geological Survey released a new study estimating the Bakken formation and surrounding oil fields could yield up to 7.4 billion barrels of oil, doubling their estimate of 2008, which was stated at 3.65 billion barrels of oil. Workers for Raven Drilling work twelve hour days fourteen days straight, staying at a camp nearby, followed by fourteen days. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)