EARTH 109
Fundamentals of Shale Energy Development: Geology, Hydraulic Fracturing, and Environmental, Geopolitical and Socio-economic Impacts

Summary and Final Tasks

Summary and Final Tasks

Summary

By now you should have an appreciation of what types of information geologists use to understand the oil and gas bearing potential of a conventional or unconventional geologic formation. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle and rarely do they all fit together nicely, at least initially! To assess an area for oil and gas requires quite a bit of time (years) and financial investment (tens of millions of dollars or more) before the first molecule of gas or drop of oil is produced, thus requiring quite a bit of patience on the geologist's part as well as the investors. It's a complex procedure and we just scratched the surface with this lesson, but you should have hopefully gained useful insights on the different disciplines of geology and technologies used to explore for oil and gas.

Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 4 tasks!

You have reached the end of Lesson 4! Double-check the to-do list on the Lesson 4 Overview page to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 5.