The shale boom is 100 million years in the making

Reuters

• Volcanic eruptions from when  dinosaurs existed created the natural material shale producers now rely on.
• This started 100 million years ago.

The great oil and gas formations that U.S. shale drillers thrive on have reportedly been traced back to volcanic eruptions from the time of the dinosaurs, over 100 million years ago.

In the Cretaceous time, the era of the dinosaurs, an enormous flare-up of volcanic activity spewed ash with high levels of carbon dioxide and nutrients that helped more organic carbon to be buried in the earth, generating an abundance of hydrocarbon source rocks from Texas to Montana, Rice University geologists said in a new study published in Nature Publishing’s online journal Scientific Reports.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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