Deepwater Petroleum Exploration and Production: A Nontechnical Guide Book

Given the current media dribble, this is a good primer on what deepwater exploration and production is and its challenges--in simple English.
Leffler, Pattarozzi, and Sterling did an admirable job of explaining the history and continued development of technology to go deeper and deeper in petroleum exploration and production. Along the way, they show the wave in the evolution of Oil and Gas Exploration from onshore, offshore, and deepwater in a graph of technology change over time.
The Eiffel Tower (in Paris, France) is 1,063 ft high and uses 7300 tons of steel. The Bullwinkle Platform (jacket) is 1500 ft high and uses 50,000 tons of steel with another 15,000 tons for anchor pillings. The Deepwater Horizon gross tonnage is 32, 588 tons. The authors do go over the engineering, siesmic, construction, petroleum, and logistics challenges involved in a way that one can understand. This book is an outstanding starting point on this subject.