subsurface metagenome Metagenome

The shale gas basins in the Ohio-Pennsylvania-New York region contain the largest natural gasreserves in the U.S. In 2012, over 7,000 Marcellus shale gas wells were active in Pennsylvania, and Ohio isexpecting a similar level of development in its deeper, Utica-Point Pleasant shale over the next 5 years.These shale have insufficient permeability to produce natural gas at economical rates, thus their developmentrequires horizontal drilling coupled to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”. The hydraulic fracturing processinvolves wellbore detonation and high-pressure injection of large volumes (up to 20 million L) of freshwaterand sand mixed with chemical additives to propagate fissures in the shale matrix, maximizing the surfacearea for natural gas release to the wellbore. As a result of fracturing, larger flow paths and newly exposedshale surfaces offer greater biogeochemical gradients for microbial colonization with greater opportunitiesfor nutrient and genetic exchange. We know little about the indigenous microbial membership of Marcellusshale, but given current physicochemical conditions of this formation (depths > 1000m, pressures > than 50MPa, temperatures > 60ºC, 20% salt content, and pore sizes < 1 µm) we anticipate that organisms enrichedduring energy development will encode adaptations to these physical and geochemical conditions. Ourmotivation is to understand the biotic and engineered factors responsible for alter