Does Your Water Catch Fire?

A recent news story, "Marcellus Shale Well Accident Reinforces Need to Guard Water Quality," on Penn State Live highlights the ongoing discussion about natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. At the forefront for many are environmental concerns, as well as the economic implications. The Marcellus Shale Formation covers 2/3 of Pennsylvania and expands into neighboring states--but just what is 'Marcellus Shale'? And what does it have to do with natural gas? How might drilling for natural gas affect the region you live in?

Issues that affect you personally can make your research much more interesting. This topic has many facets, so be sure to define the scope of your topic based on the scope of your project. (Are you writing a 3 page paper or preparing for a 20 minute debate?) This could be an interesting topic for a basic informative or persuasive speech or paper, but its many facets also make it a good subject for courses in business/industry, engineering, environmental science, health, or political science. 

For background information on this issue, see the Marcellus Shale Education & Training Center's site, the Penn State Cooperative Extension's site on natural gas, and the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection's page on Marcellus Shale (the "Factsheet" is a good place to start). For more like this, see the PA Geology & Mining Research Guide: Marcellus Shale Resources.  (Links for all users.)

Please note when using non-library resources it is especially important to consider the author of the information and the corporate or personal interests it might represent (bias). One way to do this is to look at the "About" page for the site to see who is behind the information and what their mission is. For example, the "About" page on this site shows that many members of the Marcellus Shale Coalition are businesses interested in the promotion of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. To learn more about evaluating information, visit the Information Literacy & You tutorial. (Links for all users.)

You'll find an excellent detailed background if you search the Congressional Research Service Reports for 'Marcellus Shale' to see the most recent update on the "Unconventional Gas Shales: Development, Technology, and Policy Issues" report and other reports that may become available later. If you think this report seems too long, use the table of contents to locate the sections of the report pertaining to Pennsylvania, the Marcellus Shale Formation, technology, and/or federal and state laws. (Links for PSU users only.)

Additional information--including recent news reports and discussion of residents' concerns in local PA and national newspapers--can be found in some of the "Try These First" databases (especially, Newsbank for state and national newspapers and CQ Researcher for the June 2010 issue on "Water Shortages" and the section on whether hydraulic fracturing pollutes water). Also check out the GreenFile article database, focused on articles highlighting the relationship between humans and the environment. Additional news reports can be found in the Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center (including some local PA newspapers not available in Newsbank) or via the Newspapers and News Sources research guide. (Links for PSU users only.)

For further investigation, consider the following research guides: