The latest buzz here in Northeastern Pennsylvania here in the last few months revolves around revised estimates of natural gas potential residing in the Marcellus Formation, which is a deep layer of black shale running throughout southern New York State, across Pennsylvania and into Ohio and West Virginia.
Per Wikipedia, the Marcellus Formation is believed to contain as much as 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 10% of which may be recoverable using current technologies.
Notably here in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Marcellus Formation is exceptionally thick, with some areas up to 350 feet thick - the map illustrates the extent of the Marcellus formation in grey, with isopach lines denoting layer thickness.
In terms of stratigraphy, the Marcellus Formation is part of the Hamilton Group, lying deep, however far deeper gas deposits are currently being developed elsewhere in the world.
While the economic boom is welcome - with one potential outcome being preservation of farmlands and forestlands in Northeastern Pennsylvania - in an area which has been struggling for some time, and while this deposit becomes a welcome find in an imminent energy crisis, the longer-term pros and cons are yet to be known - specifically, what are the potential environmental impacts, to aquifers, of hydrofracturing, impacts of surface activities - what needs to be done in terms of pipeline infrastructure, and so on...
Showing posts with label geology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geology. Show all posts
The Marcellus Shale Formation and Pennsylvania's Natural Gas Boom
On
5/05/2008 10:19:00 AM
10
comments
Cancelled Paper Sessions at the ESRI UC...
On
6/25/2007 09:07:00 AM
2
comments
As with ESRI User Conferences in the past, there were several cancelled paper sessions. Not that this is unusual in and of itself, but it did seem that there were more cancellations than usual this time around. For example, one person commented that virtually everything relating to geology was cancelled.
The puzzling thing to me is why they didn't consider stepping up and having other folks present. This year, I also submitted two abstracts which were not accepted - good projects, built on ArcGIS Server and ArcIMS, using realtime sensor data, realtime analysis and other things which nobody else was presenting this year - and several other people I know also submitted abstracts for other good projects, but were not accepted.
Perhaps they should consider a "standby" list for presenters and presentations, rather than just having all of the glaring and disappointing instances of "Session Cancelled" ...
Continuing Education
On
1/27/2007 09:01:00 AM
0
comments
With the passage of Senate Bill 655 mandating continuing education for Pennsylvania surveyors, engineers and geologists, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will have 18 months to develop the rules and implementation. These will then go through the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and other bodies for review.
As President of the State Registration Board for Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists, I have appointed a Board subcommittee to expedite getting the regulations package put together. Our counsel has provided some implementation details from other professions in Pennsylvania which require continuing education, and we will try to overlay the model regulations and guidelines developed by NCEES, and try to harmonize these.
As President of the State Registration Board for Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists, I have appointed a Board subcommittee to expedite getting the regulations package put together. Our counsel has provided some implementation details from other professions in Pennsylvania which require continuing education, and we will try to overlay the model regulations and guidelines developed by NCEES, and try to harmonize these.
My hope is to develop a system which provides a robust and valuable continuing education system that will benefit professionals, along with a balance toward transparency and ease of facilitation and management - particularly as we have many licensees who are registered in multiple states, as well as licensees with multiple licenses (PE/PLS) and so on.
I'd appreciate any thoughts and input from fellow professionals on implementation of continuing professional competency - comments below, or email me at dsmith (at) synergist-tech.com...
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