Fayetteville Shale

shale basin, Arkansas, United States

Written by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last updated

July 20, 2026

Quick Summary

The Fayetteville Shale is a significant shale gas basin located primarily in northern Arkansas, United States. Shale gas is natural gas extracted from fine-grained sedimentary rocks, formed from organic-rich muds buried over millions of years. Due to the dense nature of shale, extracting this gas requires unconventional methods like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. This process involves injecting fluid at high pressure to create fissures in the rock, allowing the trapped gas to flow. The Fayetteville Shale is one of several key basins that have contributed to the substantial increase in natural gas production in the United States.12

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

2 Britannica Sources

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.

shale gas
Shale gas resources of the United States
…around Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas; the Fayetteville Shale, mainly in northern Arkansas; the Woodford Shale, mainly in Oklahoma; and the Haynesville Shale, straddling the Texas-Louisiana state line. The Barnett Shale was the proving ground of horizontal drilling and fracking starting in the 1990s; more than 10,000 wells have been drilled in…
Read More
…around Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas; the Fayetteville Shale, mainly in northern Arkansas; the Woodford Shale, mainly in Oklahoma; and the Haynesville Shale, straddling the Texas-Louisiana state line. The Barnett Shale was the proving ground of horizontal drilling and fracking starting in the 1990s; more than 10,000 wells have been drilled in…
Read More