A NEW study carried out at the University of Leicester reveals that an alternative to oil could be found in ancient sea deposits dating from 300million years ago.
Shale gas sourced in mudstones in shallow water seaways could provide the future alternative to fuel modern society in the wake of demands to find new energy sources, according to the doctoral research. These mudstones, now exposed across central and northern England, contain up to 14% carbon.
Jennifer Graham, a postgraduate researcher in Leicester’s department of geology presented her research at the university’s Festival of Postgraduate Research on June 25.
In her presentation, Mudstones: their variability and hydrocarbon potential, Graham argued that fissile mudstones (shales) can yield three to four times as much gas as conventional sandstone reservoirs.
“The mudstones studied in this research were deposited in a shallow-water seaway that extended from Canada across Europe approximately 317million years ago,” she said.
“This project has the involvement of Exxon Mobil and, in the future, could potentially attract interest from other companies working to find alternative and unconventional sources of energy as oil supplies decline.”
According to her study, the understanding of these mudstones by exploring their character will be significant. However, exploiting “shale gas” is a considerable challenge because the distribution and character of mudstones are not as well known as conventional sandstone gas reservoirs.
Pursuing and extracting gas or, indeed, oil from shales is not new. Shale oil was an important industry for Scotland many years ago and shale gas plays are being opened up in North America in some numbers.