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Marcellus Shale

The Marcellus Shale geological formation extends from New York State down through Pennsylvania and into eastern Ohio, West Virginia, western Maryland and Kentucky. It encompasses 54,000 square miles and lies from 300 to 6,000 feet below the earth's surface.

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The actual shale layer is approximately 50 feet thick in its western reach, extending to more than 100 feet thick in Pennsylvania and New York. Recent estimates place its recoverable natural gas content at as much as 50 trillion cubic feet, making it twice the size of the Barnett Shale formation in Texas.

The geological characteristics of this shale formation are such that when fractured, the natural gas trapped within the rock escapes and can be contained and piped to the surface.

To maximize access to the gas, a process known as hydraulic fracturing (fracing or hydrofracing) is used in conjunction with horizontal drilling to reach out for as much as a mile or more from the vertical bore. As many as six horizontal bores can typically be drilled from a single vertical rig.



A typical well pad operation requires that approximately 5 acres of land is cleared to contain all of the drilling equipment and water storage. To access the drilling site, new roads must typically be constructed to transport the heavy equipment and as much as 3 millions gallons or more of water for each drilling operation.

The fresh water is mixed with sand and a large number of chemicals, some proprietary in nature, for injection into the well bores.

After fracing, the wastewater which is contaminated with natural brine, and often heavy metals and radioactive trace elements, must either be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner or sometimes reused in additional drilling operations.

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