From a platform of sea-ice, a team of researchers from Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United States has been drilling down into the sea floor beneath the McMurdo Sound.

ECONOMIST: The South Pole as location and metaphor

That was beyond the reach of conventional drilling platforms, which stand on steel legs anchored to the ocean floor.

FORBES: Going deep

Chevron miscalculated its drilling of its Frade field last November, an oil well just under the ocean floor in the Santos Basin in Brazil, about 70 kilometers off coastal Rio de Janeiro.

FORBES: For Brazil Oil Spill, Chevron Gets A Discount

On May 26th BP, the company responsible for the well that Deepwater Horizon had drilled, started to pump heavy drilling mud into the well's blowout preventer, a set of valves on the sea floor.

ECONOMIST: Nerves are fraying a month after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill