Extracting natural gas from Shale rock

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Extracting natural gas from Shale rock
(Geology.com: Shale) have written an article on shale that explores extraction of natural gas from shale. (Geology.com) defines shale as a fine-grained sedimentary rock formed from compaction of mud and silt. In the article, it is further noted that shale is in a category of mudstone sedimentary rocks but is distinguishable from other mudstones as it is fissile and laminated. Lamination of shale means that the rock is formed by many thin layers while fissile is used to define the ability of shale to split in thin layers along the layers.
Shale has several uses as noted in the article with black organic shale being the source of most important oils and natural gas deposits (Geology.com). The black color of these rocks is explained by (Geology.com) to have been obtained from the tiny organic sediments that were deposited together with mud during the rock formation. After compaction and warming of the rock in the earth`s interior, the organic material is transformed into oil and gas. In the convectional exploration, oil and natural gas are extracted from the sandstone since after they are formed in the shale, they rise and get trapped within the pores of the overlying rocks. The article by (Geology.com) argues that although drilling from these convectional reservoirs can give substantial amounts of oil and natural gas, many reserves remains trapped held within the shale.
(Geology.com) refers to oil and gas reservoirs in the shale as unconventional reservoirs. They observed that in the late 1990s, companies involved in drilling of natural gas came up with new ways of tapping the natural gas and oil stored in the pores of shale. This discovery was a break through as it has unlocked the largest natural gas deposits world over for the resource that is non-renewable. They note that Barnett Shale in Texas gas field was the first main site to tap natural gas from shale rock reservoir. (Geology.com) however note that producing gas from the shale was a challenge as the rock has very tiny pores and therefore moving the gas from shale to the well was difficult. Consequently, drillers came up with a way that could increas...