The Utica Shale is a stratigraphical unit of

Upper Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. Th ...

age Age or AGE may refer to: Time and its effects * Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed ** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1 * Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...

in the

Appalachian Basin The geology of the Appalachians dates back to more than 480 million years ago. A look at rocks exposed in today's Appalachian Mountains reveals elongate belts of folded and thrust faulted marine sedimentary rocks, volcanic rocks and slivers of ...

. It underlies much of the northeastern United States and adjacent parts of Canada. It takes the name from the city of

Utica, New York Utica () is a Administrative divisions of New York, city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The List of cities in New York, tenth-most-populous city in New York State, its population was 65,283 ...

, as it was first described as an outcrop along the Starch Factory Creek east of the city by

Ebenezer Emmons Ebenezer Emmons (May 16, 1799October 1, 1863), was a pioneering American geologist whose work includes the naming of the Adirondack Mountains in New York as well as a first ascent of Mount Marcy. Early life Emmons was born at Middlefield, Massa ...

in 1842.

Lithology

The Utica Shale is composed of calcareous, organic, and rich

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...

Oil and gas

The Utica shale is a major source of unconventional

tight gas Tight gas is natural gas produced from reservoir rocks with such low permeability that massive hydraulic fracturing is necessary to produce the well at economic rates. This natural gas is trapped within rocks with very low permeability, in other ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, and is rapidly becoming so in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

Quebec

Drilling and producing from the Utica Shale began in 2006 in Quebec, focusing on an area south of the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

between

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

and

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

. Interest has grown in the region since Denver-based Forest Oil Corp. announced a significant discovery there after testing two vertical wells. Forest Oil said its Quebec assets may hold as much as four trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, and that the Utica shale has similar rock properties to the

Barnett Shale The Barnett Shale is a geological formation located in the Bend Arch-Fort Worth Basin. It consists of sedimentary rocks dating from the Mississippian period (354–323 million years ago) in Texas. The formation underlies the city of Fort Worth ...

in Texas. Forest Oil, which has several junior partners in the region, has drilled both vertical and horizontal wells. Calgary-based

Talisman Energy Talisman Energy Inc. was a Canadian independent petroleum company that existed between 1993 and 2015. The company was created from the assets of BP Canada after British Petroleum divested its 57 percent stake in June 1992. It was one of Canada ...

has drilled five vertical Utica wells, and began drilling two horizontal Utica wells in late 2009 with its partner

Questerre Energy Questerre Energy Corporation (QEC) is an international energy exploration company headquartered in Calgary, Canada, and listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Oslo Stock Exchange. It holds the largest acreage position in the Utica Shale in ...

, which holds under lease more than 1 million gross acres of land in the region. Other companies in the play are Quebec-based Gastem and Calgary-based Canbriam Energy. The Utica Shale in Quebec potentially holds at production rates of per day. From 2006 through 2009 24 wells, both vertical and horizontal, were drilled to test the Utica. Positive gas flow test results were reported, although none of the wells were producing at the end of 2009. Gastem, one of the Utica shale producers, took its Utica Shale expertise to drill across the border in

New York state New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

. The province of Quebec imposed a moratorium on

hydraulic fracturing Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...

in March 2012.

Ohio

Utica Shale drilling and production began in Ohio in 2011. Ohio as of 2013 is becoming a major natural gas and oil producer from the Utica Shale in the eastern part of the state. Map of Ohio Utica Shale drilling permits and activity by date. In 2011 drilling and permits for drilling in the Utica Shale in Ohio reached record highs.

Pennsylvania

Companies like

CNX Resources CNX Resources Corporation is a natural gas company based in Pittsburgh with operations in the Appalachian Basin, primarily in the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. It also develops coalbed methane propertie ...

have had success expanding Utica Shale production in Pennsylvania, drilling its first Utica well in 2015 in Westmoreland County. In 2022, CNX formed a partnership with the Pittsburgh International Airport in Allegheny County to develop Utica shale on airport property and convert it to LNG and CNG for use in fueling aviation and other machinery.

New York

In 2009, the Canadian company Gastem, which had been drilling gas wells into the Utica Shale in Quebec, drilled the first of its three state-permitted Utica Shale wells in New York. The first well drilled was in Otsego County. New York imposed a moratorium on large-volume hydraulic fracturing in 2008. This was renewed by Governor

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...

in 2014, and continues as of December 2017.

Resource size

The US

Energy Information Administration The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and publ ...

estimated in 2012 that the Utica Shale in the US held 15.7 trillion cubic feet of unproved, technically recoverable gas. The average well was estimated to produce 1.13 billion cubic feet of gas. The same year, the

US Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, an ...

estimated that the Utica Shale had 38.2 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered technically recoverable gas, 940 million barrels of oil, and 208 million barrels of natural gas liquids. In 2022, a team of researchers in a paper published in ''

Energy Policy Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity (often governmental) has decided to address issues of energy development including energy conversion, distribution and use as well as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to contri ...

'' identified the Utica Shale as a "carbon bomb," a fossil fuel project that would result in more than one

gigaton ''Gigaton'' is the eleventh studio album by American rock band Pearl Jam, released March 27, 2020. It was preceded by the singles "Dance of the Clairvoyants", "Superblood Wolfmoon" and "Quick Escape". It is the band's first studio album in six ...

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

emissions if fully extracted and burnt.

Distribution

The Utica Shale lies under most of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and extends under adjacent parts of Ontario and Quebec in Canada and Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, and Virginia in the United States. It occurs in outcrops in the state of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and in the subsurface in the provinces of

and

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. Parts of the Utica shale underlie the

Island of Montreal The Island of Montreal (french: Île de Montréal) is a large island in southwestern Quebec, Canada, that is the site of a number of municipalities including most of the city of Montreal and is the most populous island in Canada. It is the main ...

, and its weakness relative to the Trenton and Chazy limestones under much of the rest of the island complicated the construction of the

Montreal metro The Montreal Metro (french: Métro de Montréal) is a rubber-tired underground rapid transit system serving Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The metro, operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), was inaugurated on October 14, ...

. Some stations had to be built

cut-and-cover A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube constr ...

or with a narrow

split platform A split platform is a station that has a platform for each track, split onto two or more levels. This configuration allows a narrower station plan (or footprint) horizontally, at the expense of a deeper (or higher) vertical elevation, because ...

profile to reduce the load on the bedrock. In particular, De l'Église station suffered a cave-in during construction and had to be hastily replanned. In some regions of Pennsylvania, the Utica Shale reaches to almost two miles below water level. However, the depth of the Utica Shale rock decreases to the west into Ohio and to the northwest towards Canada. It reaches a thickness of up to and can be as thin as towards the margins of the basin. are exposed in the type section.

Relationship to other units

The Utica Shale underlies the Lorraine Group and overlies the Trenton Group

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

and the Canajoharie shale in the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...

valley. The Utica Shale is divided into the Nowadaga Zone, Loyal Creek Zone and Holland Patent Zone. It lies a few thousand feet under the

Marcellus Shale Marcellus may refer to: * Marcellus (name) * Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Roman commander Places * Marcellus, Lot-et-Garonne, France * Marcellus Township, Michigan ** Marcellus, Michigan, a village in Marcellus Township ** Marcellus Community Sch ...

References

External links

Utica Shale - The Natural Gas Giant Below the Marcellus?
at geology.com
Utica Shale, A Major Oil Discovery
at TheInfoMine.com
Utica Shale, Maps
at UticaShaleMaps.com {{Stratigraphic column of West Virginia Shale formations Shale formations of the United States Oil-bearing shales in the United States Oil-bearing shales in Canada Ordovician System of North America Ordovician United States Ordovician stratigraphic units of Canada Ordovician geology of New York (state) Ordovician Ohio Ordovician Ontario Ordovician geology of Pennsylvania Ordovician Quebec Ordovician West Virginia