Geology after perforation: the reinvention of geothermal exploration in the Chilean Andes

This article examines what happens when disciplines, such as geology, historically linked to resource extraction and the fossil fuel industry, move beyond drilling technologies. It begins by providing a chronicle of the discursive and practical shifts within geothermal research after perforation, that is, after the impossibility of drilling for research – and economic – purposes in Chile. Moving beyond drilling technologies, or what I describe as geology after perforation, also refers to an understanding of geology beyond the reference to a particular discipline; it speaks to the transformation of field sites and the geological materiality under observation in the Chilean Andes. Based on the spatial and temporal scales of the geological sites chosen after the abandonment of drilling, more speculative interrogations can be formulated about what geology might become after – or without – perforation.