With high oil prices prompting an increase in domestic oil exploration, Scripps is partnering with a local firm to pursue technology that could find petroleum below the ocean floor.

Royal Dutch Shell plc, ConocoPhilips and Chevron-Texaco Corp. sponsored San Diego-based Information Systems Laboratories and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to pilot the project.

ISL announced the completion of a successful test run of the new technology in late July.

ISL is an engineering firm specializing in advanced sensors, communications and nuclear systems analysis.

Scott Bloom, general manager of ISL’s electromagnetics research division, said most seafloor oil exploration surveys are conducted above water.

The technology deploys a meter down to the seafloor to measure gravity fluctuations and look for salt domes, good indicators of oil deposits.

“In deep water, taking those samplings gets very expensive,” said Bloom. “So we want the gravity meter to crawl along the ocean floor and do that work for us, inside an autonomous underwater vehicle.”

ISL’s use of these vehicles, AUVs, is a breakthrough for deep-water oil discovery.

Mark Zumberge, research geophysicist at Scripps, specializes in measurements of gravity on land and on the seafloor and marine gravity measurements from a towed vehicle.

Zumberge says while specific industrial applications such as oil research are good for funding, his motivation is science.

“We hope to use other technologies to explore all kinds of basic research, like seafloor volcanoes, not just oil exploration,” Zumberge said.

Sometimes science motivates industry, rather than the other way around, he says.

“There are plenty of cases where an organization like the National Science Foundation will fund some research, and an oil company will show interest in that project,” Zumberge said.