Analysis of Marcellus flowback finds high levels of ancient brines

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Brine water that flows back from gas wells in the Marcellus Shale region after hydraulic fracturing is many times more salty than seawater, with high contents of various elements, including radium and barium. The chemistry is consistent with brines formed during the Paleozoic era, a study by an undergraduate student and two professors in Penn State's Department of Geosciences found. The study indicates that the brine flowback elements found in high levels in the late stages of hydraulic fracturing come from the ancient brines rather than from salts dissolved by the water and chemicals used as part of the fracking process. The paper by Lara O. Haluszczak, a Penn State student who has since graduated; professor emeritus Arthur W. Rose; and Lee R. Kump, professor and head of the Department of Geosciences; detailing those findings has been accepted for publication in Applied Geochemistry, the journal of the International Association of Geochemistry, and is available online. For the study, the researchers analyzed data primarily from four sources: a report on brines from 40 conventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania; data on flowback waters from 22 Marcellus gas wells in Pennsylvania that the state Bureau of Oil and Gas Management had collected; flowback waters from two Marcellus gas wells from a previous study; and an industry study by the Marcellus Shale Coalition on flowback samples from eight horizontal wells that was reported in a Gas Technology Institute report.