Shale gas

Horizontal drilling, also known as, fracking is a method of drilling into Shale to extract gas. Shale gas is abundant in the United States, which could mean energy independence. The amount of natural gas in the United States is equivalent to two amounts of oil in Saudi Arabia's. However, this process raises concerns, health concerns in particular. The luxury of drinking water out of the tap has been taken away from communities where fracking has hit. The economic benefits of fracking do not outweigh the health consequences communities may face. Fracking for shale gas may seem to serve as a solution for all fossil fuel problems in the United States, but in reality it only solves energy problems. Transportation uses gasoline still, and the two…

Some believe that this America’s shale revolution is economically beneficial and an indicator of its journey to energy independence. David Brooks, an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times argues in his article, “Shale Gas Revolution”, that the U.S. shale gas industry has produced more than half a million new jobs, not only in traditional areas but also in “economically-wounded” locations such as western Pennsylvania and Ohio. He also advocates for America’s decreased reliance on foreign…

The Marcellus Shale Play is a black shale formation lying under the Appalachian Basin running from Tennessee to New York. The U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates that 1,953 billion cubic feet of recoverable reserves lie beneath the shale sediment. (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2012) The EIA estimates that shale basins in the United States have a potential to produce from 500-1,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2012). Natural Gas…

Group. Replaces most of the wrongs formerly believed to be included in the Chemung formation (National Geologic Map Database). The Formation can be seen in Bradford, Blair, Cameron, Centre, Clinton, Lycoming, Mckean, Potter, Sullivan, Susquehanna, and Tioga County, Pennsylvania. The Lock Haven Formation underlies the Catskill Formation composed of primarily of gray to red sandstone and overlies the Brallier Formation composed of olive gray to dark thick laminated marine shale. Also the Lock…

Shale of the Appalachian Basin With various depositional environments and the understanding of sea level change, the Appalachian Basin formed by the collision of tectonic plates and sediment accumulation under the Earth’s surface. The Appalachian Mountains reveal subsidence belts, faulted marine sedimentary rocks and other geologic rocks in these tectonic settings. The Basin exists in the northeastern states of North America. This large rock formation exhibits collisional tectonics with modern…

SAMPLE PREPARATION: Wilcox shale and Pottsville shale samples are tested with the indentation method in this experiment. Both samples are quartz rich and silty shales which contain about 45 to 50% of quartz, 40 to 45% of clays and about 5% of plagioclase. Wilcox shale sample is from Louisiana and formed in upper Cretaceous while Pottsville shale samples are from Alabama and formed in upper Pennsylvanian. These two type of shale rocks are chosen because they are “local” rocks which was abundant…

thickest formation of surface bedrock in this area at about two hundred and fifty meters thick. This formation is a layer of shale ranging in color, mainly a…

degradation of industrial activities on the natural world. However, hydraulic fracturing for natural gas poses the greatest current threat because its potential for environmental and human damage is vast and its management is fairly unregulated. Although hydraulic fracturing, often shortened to fracking, has been around since its first…

November the 21st, I visited the Gypsum mine with my lab group: Luke Petro, Liz Morehead, and Kylie Hoef, along with several other groups. After procuring the necessary tools from the geology lab like a meter stick, rock hammer, flashlight, bottle of acid, and helmet, we set off to the mine. Located roughly 100 feet below the surface near Grand Rapids, the mine is now a storage facility owned by Michigan Natural Storage. In the mine, we measured the various rock columns to find how large the…

Problem Statement Production from modern shale oil reservoirs is done typically through hydraulic fracturing in horizontal wells. Although this discovery has led to a massive increase in production in areas that were otherwise thought to be unprofitable, there is still an enormous amount of oil left in the reservoirs. It is estimated that oil recovery is less than 10% from shale oil reservoirs. 1 Of that 10%, is it estimated only 1-2% of the reserves are recoverable. With numbers so low, it is…