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Engelder and fellow AAPG member Gary Lash, who were among the first to recognize the
Marcellus Shale’s potential.
Engelder
from page 42
focused on faulting in the Appalachian
Basin black shales.
Sheldon spent considerable time
studying the geology in the Taughannock
Falls State Park area in central New York.
She published the results of her work in
a paper titled “Some Observations and
Experiments on Joint Planes,” which
appeared in 1912 in the Journal of
Geology.
“If you look back, in terms of influence
a woman has had on the U.S. oil and gas
industry, you’d be hard-pressed to find
someone with more impact than Pearl
Sheldon,” Engelder said emphatically.
“This happened even before AAPG
originated.”
In terms of his scientific contribution
to the ongoing Marcellus action, he
commented that his most significant
paper was written in conjunction with one
of his graduate students, Alfred Lacazette,
in 1992.
Lacazette, also an AAPG member, is
now with Global Geophysical Services in
Denver.
“In that paper, we had first discovered
that the prime mechanism for driving
natural fractures in gas shale was not
water but natural gas,” he said. “Up to
that point the paradigm was that natural
hydraulic fractures were water driven.
“A lot of the basis for gas recovery is
a consequence of the presence of those
natural hydraulic fractures that Lacazette
and I documented (more than) 20 years
ago,” he said.
In widespread acknowledgement of his
scientific expertise, Engelder was featured
in a shale-focused cover story in a leading
national news magazine in 2011. He
also was included among Foreign Policy
Magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers for
2011, sharing spot 36 on the list with Gary
Lash and legendary Texas oilman George
Mitchell, renowned “father” of the prolific
Barnett Shale play in Texas.
Friends and Foes
44 MAY 2013 WWW.AAPG.ORG
Ongoing media recognition, making
the rounds on the lecture circuit and
meeting other demands that go with the
territory can make for an exciting life.
It’s not all glory.
Typical of the experience of high profile
industry/hydraulic fracturing proponents,
Engelder has been targeted by a number
of “off-beat” websites along with other
widely known anti-fracing, anti-fossil fuel
groups.
He’s not losing any sleep.
“I judge my success based on heat
coming from (a certain) website,” he said.
“If they’re on to me, that means I must be
doing something right.
“Early on, I became the Dr. Strangelove
of the fracing debate,” he quipped.
“Everyone and his brother are pretty sure
I’m the super pariah.
“When (a leading environmental group)
came out in favor of natural gas, largely
because of the (lesser) environmental
impact natural gas had on global
emissions compared to coal, the group’s
members compared their president to
me as a measure of the ultimate insult,”
Engelder joshed.
There were weighty issues of a sort
early-on.
When capital-focused Jefferies initially
asked Engelder in 2007 to evaluate the
Marcellus in terms of its potential for gas
production, he was told by a Jefferies staff
member during a one-hour conference
call that “billions of dollars of investment
capital are listening to you.”
He had qualms about releasing his
initial estimate of 50 Tcf, thinking of the
negative impact it might have if wrong.
The positives won out.
“The human economy can only be
nurtured and grow in proportion to the
energy to which systems have access,”
Engelder stated. “I did what I did based
on the knowledge that his would be a
very positive impact on the American
economy; it would be huge.”
No one would argue that this
university professor has come a long
way, baby.
He’s a happy camper.
“It’s rare for a university faculty
member to interact with the public to this
extent,” Engelder commented earnestly.
“It’s a real thrill.”
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