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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

The oil-field ‘fugitive’ that can slip into the water supply

Methane gas that steals away from leaky fossil-fuel wells can hide underground and taint groundwater.
A chained up natural gas wellhead near a gas tanker truck and lorry

A natural-gas wellhead in northern British Columbia, Canada. Such wells can leak methane into the environment. Credit: Aaron Black/Getty

Some of the natural gas that leaks from oil and gas wells can stay trapped underground, where it dissolves in groundwater and can affect water quality1.

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Nature 597, 597 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02550-2

References

  1. Chao, J. T.-H. et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL095200 (2021).

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