Drill holes in earth or rock.

Drill holes in earth or rock. is a detailed work activity in O*NET — a concrete unit of work shared across 4 occupations and seen in 4 occupation-specific tasks. It rolls up into the broader work activity Drill holes in earth or materials. in Handling and Moving Objects .

Detailed work activities are the most granular shared layer in O*NET's work-activity hierarchy (Generalized → Intermediate → Detailed → occupation-specific task). The figures below describe how this activity shows up across the economy and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the work will be automated.

AI exposure

Of the 4 tasks under this activity that the OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rated, 0 (0%) are flagged as directly exposed to language models (E1) or exposed via model-powered tools (E2).

Exposure estimates overlap with model capabilities — whether a model could speed the task up — not whether the work will be done by software. Observed AI use is augmentation and assistance today, not jobs replaced.

Member tasks

Occupation-specific tasks O*NET maps to this detailed work activity, most important first.

• Drill bolt holes into roofs at specified distances from ribs or adjacent bolts. · Roof Bolters, Mining · importance 4.9 · no direct exposure
• Drill or bore holes in rock for blasting, grouting, anchoring, or building foundations. · Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas · importance 3.8 · no direct exposure
• Drill holes into sides of stones broken from masses, insert dogs or attach slings, and direct removal of stones. · Rock Splitters, Quarry · importance 3.7 · no direct exposure
• Set up and operate equipment such as hoists, jackhammers, and drills, in order to bore charge holes. · Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters · no direct exposure

Occupations that perform this

• Roof Bolters, Mining
• Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas
• Rock Splitters, Quarry
• Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-drill-holes-in-earth-or-rock,
  title  = {Drill holes in earth or rock.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/detailed-activities/drill-holes-in-earth-or-rock}
}