Question

Questions about Marcellus Shale:

What is it?
Where is it located?
Why is it important?
What are the issues surrounding it?

Answer 1

What is it?
A massive deposit of natural gas. It's massive!

Where is it located?
It stretches deep beneath the Appalachians from Virginia all the way up through New York. Most of Pennsylvania sits right on top of it.

This article has a map that shows where it is and also a lot of info on why it's important:
http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/Marcellus.html

Why is it important?
It's loaded with natural gas and right next to the Eastern seaboard making it ideal as an energy source. The problem was in how to get to it but with advances in drilling (such as the use of fracking), all of that natural gas is now within reach.

What are the issues surrounding it?
A lot of the controversy surrounds the potential damage to the environment that the drilling can cause, especially the use of fracking which involves pumping a lot of chemically treated water into the ground to break up rock and free the gas. Drilling was actually stopped in a number of places because of local concerns over fracking. If you type "fracking problems" in Google, you'll be swimming in links on the issues.