In order to determine the innate microbial community of shale gas reservoirs and how they are impacted by hydraulic fracturing, this study analyzed biomass collected from produced water and rock from hydraulically fractured wells in the Utica Shale. The samples include rock chips from a drill core from one Utica well, produced water from that same Utica well, and produced water from 12 different Utica wells that had been in production between 1-5 years, spanning the oil and gas windows of SE Ohio. The samples were filtered for biomass, extracted, amplified, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed on the Illumina MiSeq platform.

Low biomass waters provide a unique challenge in the field of microbial ecology. It is difficult to determine, when biomass concentrations are extremely low, whether or not the sequencing data received are of good quality and representative of the waters sampled. Fifty-nine samples including 8 blanks were collected from a low biomass hydraulically fractured well producing from the Niobrara Shale in Colorado. At least 4 samples were collected by filtering the exact volume for each listed here: 1000 mL, 900 mL, 800 mL, 700 mL, 600 mL, 500 mL, 400 mL, 300 mL, 200 mL, 100 mL, 0 mL (blanks).

Data supporting "Common hydraulic fracturing fluid additives alter the structure and function of anaerobic microbial communities", describing iron reduction experiments, microbial community profiling, and statistical testing of data.

Oil and gas (OG) wastewaters are commonly disposed of by underground injection and previous research showed that activities at a disposal facility in West Virginia affected stream biogeochemistry and sediment microbial communities downstream from the facility. Microorganisms can control the fate and transport of organic and inorganic components of OG wastewater highlighting the need to characterize the effects of OG wastewater components on microbial activity. We conducted a series of aerobic microcosm experiments to assess the influence of high total dissolved solids (TDS) and hydraulic fracturing fluid additives (2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA), a biocide, and ethylene glycol, an anti-scaling additive), on microbial community structure and function. Microcosms were constructed with sediment from upstream (background) or downstream (impacted) from the disposal facility in West Virginia and four treatment conditions each with heat-killed controls were tested: 1) brine (high TDS) + DBNPA, 2) brine + ethylene glycol, 3) brine, and 4) unamended control. Microbial terminal electron accepting processes were monitored over time and changes in microbial community composition were characterized. Over the course of the incubation, the sediment layer in the microcosms became anoxic, and addition of DBNPA was observed to inhibit iron reduction.

Citation Note: These data were collected as part of a research study published in Environmental Science and Technology. Please reference the following paper when citing these data. Blondes, M.S., Shelton, J.L., Engle, M.A., Trembly, J.P., Doolan, C.A., Jubb, A.M., Chenault, J.M., Rowan, E.L., Haefner, R.J., and Mailot, B.E., 2020, Utica Shale Play Oil and Gas Brines: Geochemistry and Factors Influencing Wastewater Management: Environmental Science & Technology, https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c02461. The Utica and Marcellus Shale Plays in the Appalachian Basin are the 4th and 1st largest natural gas producing plays in the United States. Hydrocarbon production generates large volumes of brine (“produced water”) that must be disposed of, treated, or reused. Though Marcellus brines have been studied extensively, there are few studies from the Utica Shale Play. This study presents new brine chemical analyses from 16 Utica Shale Play wells in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Results from Na-Cl-Br systematics and stable and radiogenic isotopes suggest that the Utica Shale Play brines are likely residual pore water concentrated beyond halite saturation during the formation of the Ordovician Beekmantown evaporative sequence. The narrow range of chemistry for the Utica Shale Play produced waters (e.g., total dissolved solides = 214 – 283 g/L) over both time and space implies a consistent composition for disposal and reuse planning. The amount of salt produced annually from the Utica Shale Play is equivalent to 3.4% of annual U.S. halite production. Utica Shale Play brines have radium activities 580 times the EPA maximum contaminant level and are supersaturated with respect to barite, indicating the potential for surface and aqueous radium hazards if not properly disposed of.

Citation Note: These data were collected as part of a research study published in Environmental Science and Technology. Please reference the following paper when citing these data. Blondes, M.S., Shelton, J.L., Engle, M.A., Trembly, J.P., Doolan, C.A., Jubb, A.M., Chenault, J.M., Rowan, E.L., Haefner, R.J., and Mailot, B.E., 2020, Utica Shale Play Oil and Gas Brines: Geochemistry and Factors Influencing Wastewater Management: Environmental Science & Technology, https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c02461. The Utica and Marcellus Shale Plays in the Appalachian Basin are the 4th and 1st largest natural gas producing plays in the United States. Hydrocarbon production generates large volumes of brine (“produced water”) that must be disposed of, treated, or reused. Though Marcellus brines have been studied extensively, there are few studies from the Utica Shale Play. This study presents new brine chemical analyses from 16 Utica Shale Play wells in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Results from Na-Cl-Br systematics and stable and radiogenic isotopes suggest that the Utica Shale Play brines are likely residual pore water concentrated beyond halite saturation during the formation of the Ordovician Beekmantown evaporative sequence. The narrow range of chemistry for the Utica Shale Play produced waters (e.g., total dissolved solides = 214 – 283 g/L) over both time and space implies a consistent composition for disposal and reuse planning. The amount of salt produced annually from the Utica Shale Play is equivalent to 3.4% of annual U.S. halite production. Utica Shale Play brines have radium activities 580 times the EPA maximum contaminant level and are supersaturated with respect to barite, indicating the potential for surface and aqueous radium hazards if not properly disposed of.

This release contains isotopic composition (δ7Li, δ11B, δ138Ba) data of produced water and core samples taken from the Utica Shale and Point Pleasant Formation.

These data describe microbiological analyses performed on groundwater samples from domestic drinking water supply collected from 42 groundwater wells in the Central Valley of California. Samples were collected between January 2014 and April 2014 for the Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) program priority basin assessment of the Madera, Chowchilla, and Kings (MACK) groundwater sub-basins’ shallow aquifers. A total of 75 wells were sampled for the MACK study unit between August 2013 and April 2014. Samples for this dataset were vacuum filtered and plated on MI and mEI agars prior to incubation to promote colony growth. Colonies were tallied by their species into columns for various fecal indicator bacteria (FIBs): total coliforms (TCs), Escherichia coli (E. coli), enterococci. Non-target growths were also counted and tallied. Six additional replicate samples were collected for quality assurance. Of the 579 total FIB colonies detected, 106 were selected for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis with the goal of sequencing their DNA. Selected colonies consisted of both target and non-target growths and were taken from 14 samples collected at 13 different wells. DNA sequencing was successful for 34 of the sampled colonies out of a total of 59 submitted. Results for these analyses were reported in FASTA format with the number of bases and their starting position indicated for each batch.

A large spill of wastewater from oil and gas operations was discovered adjacent to Blacktail Creek near Williston, North Dakota in January 2015. To determine the effects of this spill on streambed microbial communities over time, bed sediment samples were taken from Blacktail Creek upstream, adjacent to, and at several locations downstream from the spill site. Blacktail Creek is a tributary of the Little Muddy River, and additional samples were taken upstream and downstream from the confluence of Blacktail Creek and the Little Muddy River. Samples were collected in February 2015, June 2015, June 2016, and June 2017. DNA was extracted from these sediments, and sequencing of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene was performed to enable analysis of the microbial community structure. Raw sequence data was processed, and taxonomy was assigned based on the Silva 132 database (Yilmaz et al, 2014) using the MOTHUR software package (Schloss et al, 2009). Raw sequence data are available from GenBank at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA666160.

In 2023, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Riverside Energy Michigan, LLC, conducted an injection experiment to monitor the natural rate of biogenic methane generation in the Mortensen A4-24 well which was completed in the Antrim Shale and located in Antrim County, Michigan, United States of America. Approximately 20 barrels (bbl) of produced water was pumped from the well and stored in a tank in the weeks prior to the injection. On June 6, 2023, ~15 bbl of produced water from the tank was mixed with 2 L of deuterated water (D2O) in a pump truck and injected into the Mortensen A4-24 well. An additional ~5 bbl of produced water from the tank was injected to push the D2O labeled slug into the formation. The well was shut in (both gas and produced water) until August 29, 2023. Produced water and gas samples were collected prior to the injection to assess background conditions and after the shut-in period to assess changes to the system due to the injection. Gas samples were also collected during the shut-in period. This data set includes the geochemical analyses of the produced water samples collected, the compositional and isotopic data of the gas sampled, and metaproteomic data synthesized from extraction of filtered particulates.