History
The formation is named after Chris W. Barnett who settled in San Saba County during the late 19th century where he named a local stream the Barnett Stream. During the early 20th century during a geological mapping geologists noted a thick black organic-rich shale in an outcrop close to the stream. The shale was consequently named the Barnett Shale.
The Barnett shale has acted as a source and sealing cap rock for more conventional oil and gas reservoirs in the area. It was thought that only a few of the thicker sections close to Fort Worth would be able to support economic drilling, until new advances in horizontal drilling were developed in the 1980s. Techniques such as fracturing, or "fracking", wells, used by Mitchell Energy, opened the possibility of more large scale production. Even with new techniques, significant drilling did not begin until gas prices increased in the late 1990s.
Read more about this topic: Barnett Shale
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)