Participatory Air Monitoring in the Midst of Uncertainty: Residents’ Experiences with the Speck Sensor

How do participants engage in at-home air monitoring in the midst of uncertain exposures to airborne emissions associated with unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) activities? We investigate residents’ experiences with the “Speck” particulate matter sensor with an emerging environmental health resource center called the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (EHP). In response to the gaps in knowledge about the health impacts of UNGD and the growth citizen science tools, participatory environmental monitoring (PEM) projects have taken off in shale gas communities. Using interview and survey data from residents, advocates, and activists we show that residents use the Speck as: 1) “environmental health thermometers” to make real time decisions based on readings; 2) real-time tools of exposure-validation to immediately validate or invalidate suspicions of exposure; 3) “epistemic objects” or tools manipulated in exploratory ways to understand their efficacy in monitoring UNGD; and 4) passively by those who chose to rarely interact with the monitors and rather waited for overall analysis of results. While PEM’s have been critiqued for potentially passing the burden of monitoring onto communities, our research shows PEM, when connected with research and public health organizations like EHP, can both empower individuals by increasing their perceived and actual agency and build collective knowledge by producing novel scientific findings. The modes of participation identified here each imply individual and community-level outcomes. When connected with an organization like EHP, Speck monitoring enabled participating individual the latitude to develop their own research and make immediate use of the data, while also creating data useful for aggregated scientific analyses that provoke new questions about the health risks associated with UNGD.

Application of 3D seismic attribute analysis to structure interpretation and hydrocarbon exploration southwest Pennsylvania, Central Appalachian Basin: A case study

In the Central Appalachian Basin, southwest Pennsylvania, recently collected high-quality 3D seismic data provide critical information vital to the delineation of basin structures and depositional facies. It is therefore important for the development and verification of ideas associated with structural architecture and growth history of the basin. Traditional wiggle trace imagery has a low dominant frequency and signal-to-noise ratio. The conventional seismic attributes extracted from this data set, such as amplitude, frequency, and phase, are not effective at defining structural details and relations between faults and folds. To overcome these limitations, we have applied waveform regression, jointly with variance, and ant tracking to increase the resolution of structural features, leading to enhanced observations and interpretations. Forethrust to backthrust patterns and small-scale, intrainterval shear zones or detachment faults were observed within the Devonian intervals in which the Marcellus Shale has been developed. From the trend of discontinuities, the primary stress orientation during the Devonian was defined at approximately 105°–120° azimuth, which may affect drilling orientations in the hydraulic fracturing process of the Marcellus gas shale reservoir. Initial observations of gas production data hint at a correlation between structural quiescence and increased productivity in this study area. This effort demonstrates the importance of innovative 3D seismic-attribute techniques and analysis to understanding the relationship of subsurface structural features that are fundamental to the success of future exploration for and production of oil and gas.