Fracking: Aquafornia’s ‘Water Word of the Week’
Fracking: Aquafornia’s “Water Word of the Week” from its sister site Aquapedia.
To understand what fracking means and the complex issues surrounding it, take a look inside Aquapedia.com, the Water Education Foundation’s new interactive online water encyclopedia.
A glance at Aquapedia’s list of alphabetized topics included the following entry under Fracking [Hydraulic Fracturing]: “Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, injects high pressure volumes of water, sand and chemicals into existing wells to unlock natural gas and oil. The technique essentially fractures the rock to get to the otherwise unreachable deposits.” In addition, the entry has categories titled “Fracking Issues” and “Fracking Going Forward.”
There’s also a list of resources for further research. For example, users may click on the link to the Foundation’s Sept./Oct. 2012 issue of Western Water titled “Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Quality: A Cause for Concern?” “Fracking has drawn attention because of the fear by some that the unknown mixture of chemicals put into the ground could migrate to drinking water sources,” according to an excerpt from the feature story written by Gary Pitzer. “Another concern is the possible link between fracking and seismic activity.”
Aquapedia.com also includes an option to search breaking news via the Foundation’s water news blog, Aquafornia.com, which is updated Monday-Friday with news articles, videos, blog posts and research materials. Almost always there’s a post about fracking, including a BBC video that explained the process with 3D animation.
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