The Marcellus Shale Formation was only discovered recently to be a storhouse of natural gas. It is located under Appalachia, New York and Pennsylvania and even across the great lakes into Ontario.

What makes the Marcellus Shale so exciting is the massive amount of natural gas it holds at a time when the US is needing more and more energy. The financial impact on these areas will be incredible. If you look to what has happened in a similar gas shale, the Barnett Shale or North Texas and the effect it has had there and multiply it by a factor of ten (The Marcellus Shale covers an area approximately ten times as large) you can get an idea of what this will do to the economy. It was estimated in 2005 that the impact of the Barnett shale in Texas was roughly equal to five new Boeing aircraft factories opening up. How does fifty Boeing aircraft factories sound? It seems unbelievable that something so huge is coming to an area that has been economically depressed for so long. Oil companies will need thousands of new workers to build pipelines, drill wells, operate heavy machinery, and so on. Persons wanting to get in on the ground floor should read up on oil and gas drilling so you can determing how your own skills might best mesh with new jobs coming up.

One good source of information that is used even by companies like Halliburton to train employees is a book called " A Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology, Drilling, Exploration and Production." It is available at Amazon.com through the link below.  See the site Marcellusshaleformation.com for more info on the impact of the Marcellus shale.