Why “doodlebugger” is a great word
A field technician who locates underground oil or water using a divining rod or seismic instruments. From doodlebug (a colloquial term for a divining rod or a type of seismic device) + -er (agent noun suffix). First attested in 1944. Unlike a 'roughneck,' who is the brute muscle of the drilling rig, or a 'geologist,' who is the academic historian of rock strata, the doodlebugger is the practical mystic of the subsurface, a technical dowser translating unseen vibrations into maps of potential wealth. It is the faint tremor in a pair of calibrated hands, the scribbled peak on a rolling paper seismogram, and the quiet, hopeful stake driven into barren dirt—a profession built on interpreting whispers from the dark below, where science and superstition hold a fragile truce.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).