[dohboi]

New Study: Fluids From Marcellus Shale Likely Seeping Into PA Drinking Water

http://www.propublica.org/article/new-study-fluids-from-marcellus-shale-likely-seeping-into-pa-drinking-water

New research has concluded that salty, mineral-rich fluids deep beneath Pennsylvania's natural gas fields are likely seeping upward thousands of feet into drinking water supplies.

Though the fluids were natural and not the byproduct of drilling or hydraulic fracturing, the finding further stokes the red-hot controversy over fracking in the Marcellus Shale, suggesting that drilling waste and chemicals could migrate in ways previously thought to be impossible.

From PNAS article highlights:

Natural hydraulic pathways may have implications for shale gas drilling

Natural hydraulic pathways, unrelated to recent shale gas drilling and hydrofracking, connect deep underlying brine formations to various shallow drinking water aquifers in Pennsylvania, and may increase the risk that these drinking water sources become contaminated with stray gases or deep brines from drilling, a study reports. Avner Vengosh and colleagues analyzed the geochemistry of 426 shallow groundwater samples and 83 deep brine samples to look for possible mixing between deep Appalachian brines and shallow groundwater. The authors examined water from three principal northeastern Pennsylvania aquifers and categorized the water based on its salinity and chemical constituents. The presence of similar chemical and isotopic constituents in some shallow aquifers and deep formation brines suggested that their waters intermixed, probably through naturally occurring pathways, causing groundwater salinization in some locations

[dinopello]

“There is a real time uncertainty,” he said. “We don’t know if this happens over a couple of years, or over millennia.”

Yeah, I'd say that's some uncertainty. And, if they ever could find this out for one location, it may be entirely different in another region.

Stuff like this is why it is puzzling that some have complete confidence that we understand the geology and mechanisms so perfectly that they say with 100% assurance that there can be no problems with frakking.

Even stranger is that it is often the same people that trust their geological models so completely who point out that climate models might be flawed. It's almost like they have an agenda or maybe just blinders.

[PrestonSturges]

PA is full of old oil wells, quarries, coal mines, and natural limestone caves. It's billion year old seabed that has been eroding and developing holes since before Everest even started growing.

[dohboi]

Your point being...?

Basically you are saying, it's an are full of old risks, so let's add a whole lot more new ones!

Great idea! (If you don't live there, but will reap huge profits by endangering the lives of everyone who does.)

[seenmostofit]

Your point being...?

Basically you are saying, it's an are full of old risks, so let's add a whole lot more new ones!

It seems more like, in the context of the article, that this stuff has been going on for a long time, so the most recent hype on the topic appears to be overblown.

Great idea! (If you don't live there, but will reap huge profits by endangering the lives of everyone who does.)

No more than those old wells, mines, rust belt air quality issues and everything else already "endangering" all those poor Pennsylvanian citizens. Stopping fracking is so easy it is ridiculous, don't sign the mineral lease in the first place.

[rockdoc123]

Some points that should be kept in mind I think. I haven't been able to find the paper as yet but will read it when I do.
The comments from Terry Engelder are significant. In the field of rock mechanics (which deals with various aspects of fractures, fluid pressure, migration etc) he is very well known and respected. For him to speak out publicly about his peer review (which is supposed to be confidential) means he had some pretty strong negative feelings about the paper.
Note that there is absolutely no reason in the world that two formations separated by thousands of metres could not have the same brine content. Often they don't but one can easily see how widespread movement of groundwater along faults could create significant mixing in geologic time.
We've already established that faults are an issue. They are an open conduit through which fluids can flow if they are open. That is why problems will happen if faults are intersected and fraccing operations attempted. As I've said before there is no way in the world given current wireline logging technology that faults cannot be identified. Also the minute you start to pump fluid you would know if there is an open fracture and pumping could be terminated. So faults need not be an issue. The Marcellus is at several thousand metres depth....faulting is the only viable conduit for waters. The Marcellus shale was subject to folding and faulting during the Alleghanian orogeny which was late Paleozoic in age. Those faults have been there for a long time and would have formed migration pathways for fluids for a very long time.

I think it is telling that one of the authors made this comment:

Nevertheless, Jackson, one of the study's authors, said he still considers it unlikely that frack fluids and injected man-made waste are migrating into drinking water supplies. If that were happening, those contaminants would be more likely to appear in his groundwater samples, he said.