Fresh ice water is so refreshing on a hot summer’s day! But here’s the thing — take away that water, and you have nothing. If you look at the Earth from space, you will see that most of our planet is liquid. However, the vast majority is salt water and unusable for human consumption. According to ...
New research documents for the first time link the pollution of public water supplies caused by shale gas development, commonly known as fracking, to its negative impact on infant health. These findings call for closer environmental regulation of the industry, as levels of chemicals found in drinking water often fall below regulatory thresholds. Elaine Hill, ...
Crude oil production and natural gas withdrawals in the United States have lessened the country’s dependence on foreign oil and provided financial relief to U.S. consumers. However, hydrofracking and drilling have also raised longstanding concerns about environmental damage, such as groundwater contamination. A researcher in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and a team ...
The horizontal drilling method called hydraulic fracturing helps the United States produce close to 4 billion barrels of oil per year, rocketing the U.S. to the top of oil-producing nations in the world. The highly profitable practice comes with a steep price: For every barrel of oil, oil and gas extraction also produces about seven barrels ...
A byproduct of oil and gas production is a large quantity of toxic wastewater called brine. Well-drillers dispose of brine by wastewater injected into deep rock formations, where its injection can cause earthquakes. Most quakes are relatively small, but some of them have been large and damaging. Yet predicting the amount of seismic activity from ...
Two moderate-sized earthquakes that struck the southern Sichuan Province of China last December and January were probably caused by nearby fracking operations, according to a new study published in Seismological Research Letters. The December 2018 magnitude 5.7 and the January 2019 magnitude 5.3 earthquakes in the South Sichuan Basin caused extensive damage to farmhouses and other structures in ...
Chemical clues in waters near Marcellus Shale gas wells in rural Pennsylvania can identify new drilling-related sources of methane contamination, according to scientists. The findings provide a new tool for distinguishing potential environmental impacts of shale drilling from pre-existing methane levels commonly found in Pennsylvania waterways, the researchers said. Scientists also found that methane contamination ...
Elevated concentrations of strontium, an element associated with oil and gas fracking wastewater, have accumulated in the shells of freshwater mussels downstream from fracking wastewater disposal sites, according to researchers from Penn State and Union College. Nathaniel Warner, assistant professor of environmental engineering at Penn State, said: “Freshwater mussels filter water and when they grow ...
The interaction between a chemical slurry and ancient shale during hydraulic fracking is producing radioactive waste, according to Dartmouth College research. The study, detailed in twin papers appearing in Chemical Geology, is the first research that characterizes the phenomenon of radium transfer in the widely-used method to extract oil and gas. The findings add to ...
A study of earthquakes induced by injecting fluids deep underground has revealed surprising patterns, suggesting that current recommendations for hydraulic fracturing, wastewater disposal, and geothermal wells may need to be revised. Researchers at UC Santa Cruz compiled and analyzed data from around the world for earthquakes clearly associated with injection wells. They found that a ...
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