Post Carbon Institute has an incredibly detailed (and gorgeous!) map of all US shale oil and gas wells (they count 63,000 through June 2012 using data from Drilling Info). I've embedded it below so you can get lost in the crazy amount of detail:
For a more pleasant viewing experience though, head over to Post Carbon's website or view the map full screen.
What immediately jumps out to me is just how much activity there is around the country. Check out all the activity in the Barnett Shale just west of Dallas, TX and literally under Fort Worth and thinning out near Possum Kingdom. South of me a couple hours is the Eagle Ford shale, which runs from East Texas to where the "Tex meets the Mex". And drilling in places like Oklahoma and New Mexico, which don't receive as many headlines as North Dakota and Pennsylvania.
Also interesting (to me at least) is how we see mankind's mark on the land in the form of oil and gas wells. If you zoom in on the Bakken formation, what starts out as a blob of activity gives way to meticulously organized, DNA sequence-esque, east-west arrangement of drilling sites.
Just fascinating. If anyone needs me, I'll be staring at this map the rest of the afternoon.
Props to @bradplumer and @postcarbon. If you like this map, you might also be interested in these maps of drilling rig movements.
