Marcellus formation
The Marcellus Formation (English Marcellus Shale ) is a lithostratigraphic unit of marine sedimentary rocks of the Central Devonian in eastern North America. The formation is named after an outcrop near the village of Marcellus in the US state of New York . It extends over an area of almost 250,000 square kilometers (approx. 95,000 square miles) mainly over the US states of New York, Pennsylvania , Ohio and West Virginia , and in the vast majority of this area it is deep in the subsurface of the Appalachian Plateau (today's geographical correspondence of the foreland basin system of the late Paleozoic “Ur-Appalachians”, see geology ) is hidden.
geology
The Marcellus Formation consists mainly of black slate and subordinate light shale and limestone . This alternation resulted from fluctuations in sea level during their deposition almost 400 million years ago. The black shale was deposited in oxygen-free water at greater depths of the sea. They hardly contain any fossils . Most of the fossils are contained in the limestones that were deposited in shallower water. The deposit area was the so-called Appalachian Basin, a foreland basin system whose southeastern edge, including the part of the Marcellus Formation deposited there, incorporated into the external Appalachian fold belt (today geographically represented by the so-called Valley-and-Ridge Province) during the Alleghenian orogeny in the late Paleozoic has been. The Marcellus Formation, however, still belongs to the Acadian phase of the Appalachian Basin.
raw materials
The black shales of the formation Marcellus contain so-called unconventional natural gas occur ( shale ). Their proximity to the markets on the east coast of the United States made their development attractive for the energy and chemical industries. The gas is obtained by hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Because this method is considered to be particularly risky, its use is controversial. While Pennsylvania has developed from an insignificant US state in terms of energy policy to the state with the second-highest natural gas production since the end of the 2010s, shale gas production in New York has been subject to a moratorium since 2008 and has been permanently banned since 2014.
The black shale also contains iron ore , which was mined in the early stages of the region's economic development, as well as uranium ores and pyrite .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Joel Kirkland: Big Money Drives Up the Betting on the Marcellus Shale. New York Times, July 8, 2010
- ^ A b Daniel J. Soeder: Unconventional: The Development of Natural gas from the Marcellus Shale. Geological Society of America Special Paper 527. Boulder (CO) 2017, pp. 5–14 ( Basic Geology )
- ^ Lynn Kerr McKay, Ralph H. Johnson, Laurie Alberts Salita: Science and the reasonable development of Marcellus Shale natural gas resources in Pennsylvania and New York. Energy Law Journal. Vol. 32, No. 1, 2011, pp. 125–143 ( PDF 277 kB)
- ↑ Andrew Boslett, Todd Guilfoos, Corey Lang: Valuation of Expectations: A Hedonic Study of Shale Gas Development and New York's moratorium. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Vol. 77, 2016, pp. 14–30, doi: 10.1016 / j.jeem.2015.12.003 (alternative full-text access : University of Rhode Island , unlayed manuscript)
- ↑ Daniel Markind: Can New York Keep The Lights On While Ignoring Gas From The Marcellus Shale? Forbes, July 25, 2019
Web links
- Outcrops of the Middle Devonian Marcellus Formation - Outcrop photos of the Marcellus Formation from south of Lycoming County, Central Pennsylvania (about 5 to 20 kilometers south of the Alleghenian Front) and western New York State, near the northern edge of its range, with explanations of tectonics on the website of the Department of Geosciences of the Pennsylvania State University (English)
- Radioactivity in the Marcellus Shale - Video recording of a lecture by Dr. Marvin Resnikoff (Senior Associate at Radioactive Waste Management Associates , a radioactive waste management consultancy) at the University of New York at Binghamton, 2011, on the risk potential of radioactivity from the Marcellus Shale.