What Is The Marcellus Shale Formation?

The Marcellus shale has been making news lately, especially on the financial channels such as CNBC in stories about natural gas.

The Marcellus shale is a layer of shale rock that lies under much of the Northeastern United States. More than sixty percent of the state of Pennsylvania has the Marcellus shale beneath it and most of that contains recoverable natural gas. This Devonian age shale, formed roughly 390 million years ago, has been known of by geologists since it was identified on the surface near the small town of Marcellus New York.

It is possibly the most important discovery of unconventional natural gas in the United States. Because horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing must be used to extract gas from the Marcellus shale it is known as an unconventional source.  Terry Engelder, Penn State University professor, has estimated that the shale contains over 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Natural gas is quickly gaining room in the spotlight as a means to reduce imported oil. The supply of natural gas in North America has increased to over one hundred years worth at current usage rates, thanks to shale gas discoveries like the Marcellus shale and Utica Shale.

Drilling and development in the Marcellus shale have created a fair amount of controversy. Communities that are not used to oil and gas drilling are suddenly living in one of the biggest fields in the U.S. Oil rigs and commercial traffic, site clearing and oilfield road building, plus public mistrust of oil companies in general have led to organized resistance to the development of certain areas.

Below is a map of Marcellus, New York. This area in not where the drilling activity is taking place but is where the shale outcrops, or reaches the surface.

For more information on the Marcellus shale formation see: Marcellusshaleformation.com