Oil And Natural Gas : Why Black Shales Can Be Hosts Of A Significant Amount Of Uranium

Uranium is a naturally occuring chemical element that can be mined from ore in many parts of the Southwestern United States where

There are several types of shale that are drilled in which include: Bakken shale, Barnett shale, Eagle Ford shale, Haynesville shale, Marcellus shale, and Utica shale. Bakken shale is a formation of oil deposits that can be found in parts of Montana, North Dakota, and parts of Saskatchewan which is located in Canada (“What is Fracking”). Barnett shale contains large amounts of natural gas, and sometimes oil and can be found in North Texas (“What is

Hydrocarbons: Hydrocarbons are a form of organic compounds consisting exclusively of hydrogen molecules and carbon molecules. Classes of this composite entail: arenes, alkynes, alkenes, and alkanes. Hydrocarbons are chief workings of natural gas, oils, and pesticides, which can lead to some negative effects on the environment.

The radioactive elements and huge concentration of salt that is injected into the shale rocks concerns the nation because they’ve seen cases to when those chemicals have found their way into our water and even our air. In results of this problem- biology professor Robert Jackson, discusses in Source D- how he, along with some researchers, analyze two hundred private wells of residents in

Oil and Gas exploration has been an ongoing project in the Raton Basin, but a quite unsuccessful one at best. The Raton Basin is primarily a flood plain paludal deposit which is not ordinarily an ideal unit to recover oil or gas from (Speer, 1976). The sandstones within the Raton are predominantly coarse grained, poorly sorted, fluvial sandstones which have been shown

In 2000, shale beds where the number one source of America’s constant need for gas. Most of that production increase has come about to the growing need of hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking”, which is a process used to release oil or gas from underground formations that are otherwise too hard to mine with other tools. Over the past few years, advances in fracking technology have made huge reserves of natural gas in America economically recoverable. According to the Energy Information Administration, shale gas plays, or fields, in the United States, most notably the Marcellus, in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York, and the Barnett, in Texas, are said to contain enough natural gas to give power to the country for a hundred and ten years. With the everlasting specter of energy independence, some have argued that such efforts to recover natural gas need to be expanded. Activists concerned with fracking’s potential environmental hazards view the new process as a serious threat to our environment. There are many different opinions on wether or not fracking is a safe way to gain our gasoline, and to meet the growing demands of gasoline around the world. The process of fracking creates cracks that come from wells into oil and gas formations by pumping highly pressurized fluids, ceramic beads, sand, and a mixture of chemicals, into the gas formation. As this fluid holds the underground fissures open, oil and gas fly up the well to the surface where they are

The Freeman-Jewett shale formation is a strong indicator of a low-energy/quiet depositional environment. It is likely this layer was originally deposited offshore in a marine environment. This is further supported by the following Bena Gravel formation, which is emblematic of a transitional beach-type environment with pebble size sand and gravel. This coarser layer of sand and gravel overlying the silty and sandy shale could be evidence for a regressive cycle and receding sea levels. The Bena Gravel formation is eroded by Kern River Gravel which creates a disconformity in the stratigraphy. The Kern River Gravel has stream like deposits but since it cuts through the Bena Gravel Formation it is suggestive the Kern River Gravel formation has a delta depositional environment. The Terrace formation suggests a stream depositional environment. If terracing is present, it indicates a decrease in discharge over time. The next formation, Alluvium, is evidence of an alluvial fan deposition, a glacial deposition that has been reworked by meltwater, or of a dried lake bed. (Levin p.86). Regardless of which, the Alluvium formation gives away easily to mass wasting to from the landslide formation.

What is Marcellus Shale? It is a marine sedimentary rock buried thousands of feet beneath the earths surfaces. Sedimentary rock is one of the three main rock groups and is formed in four main ways: by the deposition of the weathered remains of other rocks; by the accumulation and the consolidation of sediments; by the deposition of the results of biogenic activity; and by precipitation from solution. Marcellus Shale is found throughout the Allegheny Plateau region of the northern Appalachian basin of North America. It stretches from upstate New York south through Pennsylvania to West Virginia and west to parts of Ohio. Marcellus shale was named after a town in upstate New York, the rock itself is millions of years old, formed from mud and other natural materials. Its made up of the formation of black shale that may contain lime stone beds and concentrations of iron pyrite and siderite. The Sedimentary beds and structure is very well developed. Lighter colored shales in the upper portion of the formation tend to split into small thin edged fragments after exposure. The fragments may have and leave rust stains from exposure of pyrite to air, and tiny gypsum crystals from the reaction between both of the fragments pyrite and the limestone particles. Fresh exposures of the pyriteiferous shale may develop the secondary mineralization of orange limonite and the pale yellow efflorescence or bloom of sulfur, associated with acid

Natural gas began to be extracted from the Marcellus shale formation in the mid-2000s’, and now well pads and their associated infrastructures are now well known fixtures in the Appalachian Mountain regions. Marcellus Shale is an organically rich black shale which is currently being explored by drilling as a source of natural gas. The region in question encompasses most of the relatively uninhabited Appalachian basin, which is located within the Appalachian mountain range. The basin is comprised of sedimentary rocks which stretch from Ontario, Canada all the way down through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and New Jersey.

Uranium mining in and near the Grand Canyon will be devastating to the complex ecosystem found in the park and will also have a damaging effect on visitors’ experiences. Uranium mining produces toxic waste that if not managed properly will leak into the groundwater systems. This threatens not only the local animal and plant life but also people who use the watershed for their drinking water. Individuals should consider the detrimental effects of additional noise and air pollution produced by the mining operations, the very serious threat of what a contaminated aquifer would mean to the Park’s health and the health of the 20 million people who live downstream. Additionally mining operations will need to install roads and buildings to support

1981- Results of the Eastern Gas Shales Project were published by the US Department of the Interior

The Wasco oil field produces mainly from the Oligocene Vedder Formation and Eocene sandstones within the Kreyenhagen Formation in the San Joaquin basin, California. The Vedder and Kreyenhagen sandstones in the Wasco oil field consist of fine-to coarse-grain, very poor to well sorted, angular to sub round, arkosic arenites. Porosity development in these deeply buried sandstones was significantly affected by compaction, dissolution of framework grains, and precipitation of authigenic minerals. These diagenetic processes controlled the quality of the Vedder and Kreyenhagen sandstone reservoirs.

“The Utica shale is a black, calcareous, organic rich shale of Middle Ordovician age”(King). It is found under Marcellus Shale and is located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and parts of eastern North America. Utica is a couple thousand feet below Marcellus Shale. Utica has large amounts of natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquid. The United States Geological Survey estimates about 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 940 million barrels of oil and 208 million of natural gas liquids. The formation is interesting due to its vast size and depth. Also, the gas and oil has very low permeability that

Engineering and surveying, construction, hospitality, construction, equipment manufacturing as well as environmental permitting are only a percentage of the professions encountering the positive gradually expanding influences of expanding oil in addition to natural gas shale improvement. Gallegos & Varela asserts that “a few critiques of oil and natural gas generation assert that Hydraulic Fracturing has critical environmental results. The fact of the matter is, while all advancement has challenges, Hydraulic Fracturing innovation has numerous environmental benefits and it is utilized under close supervision by state and government authorities” (26). Studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Ground Water Protection Council have affirmed that there is no immediate connection between Hydraulic Fracturing activities and groundwater contamination.

I have I determined specimen A as a black Shale. I have found out that the shale is a sedimentary rock. The rock is dark/black coloured from the picture, therefore suggests that it has high organic matter. From research I have concluded that shale is commonly marine as it is usually found in rivers, lakes and the sea floor and this will suggest to me that the shale is from a low energy environment. The rock is hard but it is quite brittle. I have established that all the grain sizes are less than 0.5mm which tells me they are fine grained when looking at the Wentworth’s scale.