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Peer Reviewed

Hydraulic Fracturing and Brook Trout Habitat in the Marcellus Shale Region: Potential Impacts and Research Needs

Fisheries

22 Jan 2013

Weltman-Fahs M & JM Taylor

The expansion of hydraulic fracturing poses multiple threats to surface waters, which can be tied to key ecological attributes that limit brook trout populations. Here, we expand current conceptual models to identify three potential pathways of risk between surface water threats associated with increased natural gas development and life history attributes of brook trout: hydrological, physical, and chemical.

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Peer Reviewed

Analysis of BTEX groundwater concentration from surface spills associated with hydraulic fracturing operations

Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association

14 Jan 2013

Gross SA, Avens HJ , Banducci AM, Sahmel J, Panko JM, Tvermoes BE

Concerns have arisen among the public regarding the potential for drinking water contamination from the migration of methane gas and hazardous chemicals associated with hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. However, little attention has been paid to the potential for groundwater contamination resulting from surface spills from storage and production facilities at active well sites

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Peer Reviewed

Geochemical evidence for possible natural migration of Marcellus Formation brine to shallow aquifers in Pennsylvania

PNAS

09 July 2012

Nathaniel R. Warner, Robert B. Jackson, Thomas H. Darrah, Stephen G. Osborn, Adrian Down, Kaiguang Zhao, Alissa White, and Avner Vengosh

This study examines hydraulic connectivity between shale gas formations and the overlying shallow drinking water aquifers.

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Peer Reviewed

Potential Contaminant Pathways from Hydraulically Fractured Shale to Aquifers

Groundwater

17 APR 2012

Tom Myers

This study uses interpretative modeling to examine potential contaminant pathways from fractured shale to aquifers.

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Peer Reviewed

Water pollution risk associated with natural gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale

Risk Analysis: An International Journal

28 December 2011 (ePub; printed August 2012)

Rozell DJ, Reaven SJ.

Using probability bounds analysis, this study assessed the likelihood of water contamination from natural gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale. Probability bounds analysis is well suited when data are sparse and parameters highly uncertain. The study model identified five pathways of water contamination: transportation spills, well casing leaks, leaks through fractured rock, drilling site discharge, and wastewater disposal. Probability boxes were generated for each pathway. The potential contamination risk and epistemic uncertainty associated with hydraulic fracturing wastewater disposal was several orders of magnitude larger than the other pathways.

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Peer Reviewed

Rapid expansion of natural gas development poses a threat to surface waters

Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment

06 Oct 2011

Sally Entrekin, Michelle Evans-White, Brent Johnson, and Elisabeth Hagenbuch

This paper discusses some of the risks to surface water from natural gas development.

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Peer Reviewed

Should Fracking Stop? Extracting gas from shale increases the availability of this resource, but the health and environmental risks may be too high.

Nature

15 Sep 2011

Robert W. Howarth, Anthony Ingraffea & Terry Engelder

Point and counterpoint commentary provided by Howarth, Ingraffea, & Engelder on natural gas extraction of shale formations in Nature.

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Peer Reviewed

Methane Contamination of Drinking Water Accompanying Gas-Well Drilling and Hydraulic Fracturing

PNAS

14 Apr 2011

Stephen G. Osborn, Avner Vengosh, Nathaniel R. Warner, and Robert B. Jackson

This study documents systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale gas extraction in aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shale formations of northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

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