The Marcellus Middle Devonian-age organic-rich formation, also known as Marcellus Shale, extends in the subsurface from New York State in the north to northeastern Kentucky and Tennessee in the south and is the most prolific natural gas-producing formation in the Appalachian basin.

Producing gas wells in the Marcellus Shale gas play. The shale contains largely untapped natural gas reserves, and its proximity to the high-demand markets along the East Coast of the United States makes it an attractive target for energy development and export. [125]

The Marcellus Shale, also referred to as the Marcellus Formation, is a Middle Devonian-age, black, low-density, carbonaceous (organic-rich) shale that occurs in the subsurface beneath much of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.

The Marcellus natural gas trend is a large geographic area of prolific shale gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale or Marcellus Formation, of Devonian age, in the eastern United States. [2] The shale play encompasses 104,000 square miles and stretches across Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and into eastern Ohio and western New York. [ 3 ]

Jan 16, 2024 · As of September 2009, more than 70 companies have acquired lease positions and drilled numerous horizontal and vertical discovery wells, establishing a broad play area for the Marcellus Shale, encompassing more than 28 million acres across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Maryland, and Ohio.

The “new” Marcellus shale play began in 2003, when Range Resources drilled a well through the Marcellus down to the Lower Silurian in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Targeted reservoirs were not productive, but the Marcellus showed promise and was successfully completed in 2004. Range drilled additional wells, experimented with drilling

The massive Marcellus shale is arguably the star of the Appalachian Basin plays. It is the largest and one of the deepest natural gas play in the United States, located directly under the Mahantongo and Tully Limestone formations.

The Middle Devonian Marcellus shale play has emerged as a major world-class hydrocarbon accumulation. It has rapidly evolved into a major shale gas target in North America and represents one of the largest and most prolific shale plays in the world with a prospective area of approximately 114,000 km 2 (44,000 mi 2 ).

Marcellus is a shale play located in the Appalachian Basin. Elevation contours are measured in feet (ft) and defined as true vertical depth to producing formation top and calcuated by subtracting true vertical drilling depth from the elevation reference measured at the drilling site.

The revised Marcellus play map summarizes geologic play elements, the growth of production, and distribution of sweet spots within the play based on publicly available data and a commercial well information database.