BEYOND THE HEADLINES
Fracturing and Natural Gas in Groundwater:
Is There a Connection?
Bruce K. Darling, Senior Consultant/Geochemist, Geosyntec Consultants
Editors note: Professionals in
the oil and gas industry often
receive questions about how
industry operations affect public
health, the environment, and the
communities in which they operate.
Of particular concern today is the
impact of hydraulic fracturing on
the environment. In this column, JPT
invites energy experts to put those
questions and concerns about industry
operations into perspective. Additional
information about the oil and gas
industry, how it affects society, and
how to explain industry operations
and practices to the general public is
available on SPEs Energy4me website
at www.energy4me.org.
Anyone who has watched films such as
Gasland and Promised Land is aware
of the alleged dire consequences to
groundwater resources from the petro-
leum industrys decades-old practice of
hydraulic fracturing of tight formations
to release hydrocarbons.
Gasland (a documentary) and
Promised Land (a movie starring Matt
Damon) purport to expose such threats,
which are highlighted in the form of nat-
ural gas discharging from groundwater
or flares from the kitchen faucets of land-
owners whose water wells are located
near fields with recently fractured wells.
Such representations are intended
to create the impression that fracturing
opens pathways from deeply buried stra-
ta for the migration of natural gas, brine,
and drilling fluids to shallow formations
that are sources of groundwater for cities
and rural areas where fracturing is a
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common method for oil and gas extrac-
tion. The print and broadcast media are
complicit in the matter, as both have
piled on to fan the sentiment of Ameri-
cans against this method of developing
much needed natural gas resources.
A consequence of antifracturing
films and reporting is confusion among
the public and attempts by environmen-
talists to ban fracturing.
Origins of Natural Gas
Natural gas is derived from different
sources. Most of what we think of as
natural gas is produced within the deep
subsurface under high-temperature
and high-pressure conditions (thermo-
genic gas). A much smaller component
is derived from the production of gas
in the shallow subsurface under low-
temperature and low-pressure environ-
ments (biogenic gas, that is, coal beds,
swampy environments, and landfills).
Geochemists can differentiate be-
tween thermogenic and biogenic gases
by looking at their carbon composi-
tions (as illustrated by gas chromato-
graphs) and their carbon and hydrogen
isotopesignatures.
This column focuses on the role of
gas chromatography as a differentiator
of biogenic and thermogenic gases. Car-
bon and hydrogen isotope ratios will be
the subject of another column.
Gas Chromatography
Because of the different environments
in which natural gases are generated,
thermogenic gases and biogenic gases
can be expected to have distinct com-
positions. All hydrocarbons are carbon-
based compounds with the number of
carbon atoms of the components rang-
ing from one to as many as 30 (C1 to
C30). For our purposes, we are interest-
ed only in those components with one to
six (C1 to C6) carbon atoms, which are
methane through hexane, respectively.
Biogenic gases are primarily meth-
ane (C1) and very little ethane (C2) and,
in some cases, propane (C3), with meth-
ane usually accounting for 99% or more
of total gas. Thermogenic gas consists
of measurable components of frac-
tions heavier than methane (that is, C2
through C6 gases).
The difference between thermo-
genic and biogenic gases is illustrat-
ed in Fig. 1, which shows the composi-
tion of the gas samples collected from
the groundwater of the Wilcox aquifer
and produced-gas samples from near-
by fractured wells that were thought
to have been the source of natural gas
in the aquifer, approximately 10 miles
north of Shreveport (Caddo Parish),
Louisiana. The figure shows the per-
centage (by mass) of each hydrocarbon
and nonhydrocarbon gases detected in
the samples.
Different Sources,
Different Compositions
There are distinct differences between
biogenic and thermogenic gases. The
samples of biogenic gas, collected from
the aquifer, include large percentag-
es of the nonhydocarbon gases argon
(Ar), oxygen (O2), and nitrogen (N) (all
of which are dominant components
JPT JULY 2015
of atmospheric gas), a large percent-
age mass of methane, and very little
ethane and propane. In these samples,
the ratio of methane to ethane and pro-
pane is much higher than 1,000. These
high ratios are characteristic of biogenic
gases, which are considered to be dry.
The samples of thermogenic gas,
collected from recently fractured wells
within one mile of the water wells from
which the samples of biogenic gas were
collected, are deficient in the atmospher-
ic gases, but are dominated by methane
through hexane. Furthermore, the ratio
of methane to ethane and heavier hydro-
carbons in the samples is less than 50.
Such low ratios are common to thermo-
genic gases.
The hydrocarbon composition illus-
trated in Fig. 1 can be considered to rep-
resent the fingerprints of the different
samples of gas. Clearly, there are distinct
differences between the chromatograph-
ic patterns of the biogenic and thermo-
genic gases and this demonstrated dif-
ference removes the fractured wells as
the source of the natural gas in the Wil-
cox aquifer.
My further investigation of this mat-
ter pointed directly to an association with
lignite beds in the Wilcox as the source of
the natural gas found in the groundwater
wells. Lignite, a low-rank coal, is wide-
spread throughout the shallow subsur-
face of northwestern Louisiana.
Heavy pumping of water wells dur-
ing an extended period of below-normal
rainfall (drought) caused lowering of
water levels in domestic wells throughout
the area. The lower water levels reduced
pressures just enough to allow biogen-
ic gas to migrate toward pumping water
wells. We also found, in the drillers notes
on one of the water wells, descriptions of
lignite within the 50-ft screened interval
of the well.
JPT JULY 2015
100 Thermogenic Gas Samples
From Nearby Fractured Wells
10
1
Mole %
0.1
Biogenic Gas Samples
From Wilcox Aquifer
0.01
0.001
0.0001
CO He H2 Ar O2 N2 CO2 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6+
Detected Gases
Fig. 1Gas chromatography patterns of thermogenic and biogenic gas
compositions detected in samples collected in Louisiana.
I have looked at many such cases with thermogenic gas migrating from
in Louisiana in which natural gas is fractured formations deep within
detected in groundwater. In every such the subsurface.
case, whether in northwestern Loui- This underscores the importance
siana, central Louisiana, and south- of not rushing to judgement on the
eastern Louisiana, all of the geochem- assumed effects of fracturing, but to
ical signatures are consistent with take a close look at local and regional
the biogenic gas produced in shal- geological factors that easily account for
low subsurface environments, and not the generation of biogenicgas.JPT
Bruce K. Darling is a senior consultant with Geosyntec
Consultants. He has worked for 33 years as a geologist in
theenergy and environmental industries. As a consultant, he
hasrepresented clients in the petroleum, mining, electric
power,and radioactive-waste disposal industries. He has also
directed field programs in Kenya for nonprofit organizations
involved in the development of water resources in eastern Africa.
Much of his petroleum-related consulting work is in support of producers faced
withlitigation over allegations of soil and groundwater contamination associated
withleases in Texas and Louisiana. He works from offices in Austin, Texas, and
Lafayette, Louisiana. He holds an MS in geology from the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette and a PhD in hydrogeology/geochemistry from the University of Texas
atAustin.
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