Barnett Shale - Fort Worth's subterranean 'strange rock' and gas boom

The Barnett Shale is a fine-grained, gas-bearing sedimentary rock formation that underlies the Fort Worth Basin and much of the city of Fort Worth. Development of the Barnett in the early 2000s using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing launched a major unconventional natural gas boom that concentrated activity in and around Fort Worth. Scientific studies have linked increased seismicity in North Texas to wastewater disposal from production in the Barnett Shale; this connection has been the subject of ongoing research and regulatory attention. The formation is widely cited as one of the first commercially successful shale-gas plays in the United States.