Posted on 12/13/2012 5:47:50 PM PST by matt04
Fracking, the controversial method of extracting shale gas or other petroleum from deep below the earth's surface, might be possible in the Connecticut River Valley, geologists say.
But the rock deposits likely to bear gas are thin here and difficult to access, making commercial exploitation of the resource unlikely in the near future.
“It's not hard to hit,” said James L. Coleman Jr., a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “It's hard to do anything with once you get it.”
Coleman was one of the speakers Thursday at a day-long conference on the future of shale gas, hydraulic fracturing and the state's future organized by the American Ground Water Trust and hosted at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus center.
Coleman and his colleagues at the U.S. Geologic Survey released a study in June looking at the gas-producing potential of rift valleys up and down the East Coast, including the Hartford/Deerfield Basin here in the Pioneer Valley.
There are rock layers capable of containing shale gas, he said. But they are only 2 to 12 feet thick in most places, compared to thousands of feet thick in the Marcellus Shale region to the west in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.
Those deposits were laid down by a vast prehistoric ocean, said Richard D.Little, a professor emeritus of geology at Greenfield Community College and a speaker at the conference. By contrast, the shale-bearing rock here was laid down by a series of lakes.
Those layers are also lower in organic content, making them less likely to contain a lot of gas, or oil for that matter. Little said the layers that might have petroleum here have also been tilted by subsequent geologic forces. That would have allowed the gas to escape over time.
(Excerpt) Read more at masslive.com ...
Our current idiot of a governor in CT would sooner build 10 casinos on top of a treasure trove of shale gas rather than dare frack it out of the ground.
Just as I suspected, in the back of my mind I have been questioning for the last few years if it was their. The Appalachian Mountain Trail goes through Western Ma and to the West is the Berkshires. I bet this thickness is a crock and the greenie weenies don’t want it.. Frig-Um let um Freeze. Oh and BTW, this is where I was born and raised. I see nothing but infighting and EPA types looking for a rare blue salamander on the drilling site...
Ping
It’s basic geology. The Connecticut River valley is a Triassic rift basin. A redbed from mountain runoff. Not an organic-rich shale formation like the Marcellus.
“The Connecticut River valley is a Triassic rift basin.”
Wouldn’t that be more prone to having shallow coal methane horizons?
No. They are redbed erosional basins, not organic soup basins.
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