"Could Deep-Earth Microbes Help Us Frack for Oil?"

"MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- On a muddy hill above a World War II ordnance plant that made material for atomic bombs, a fracking crew will drill thousands of feet underground in a search for life itself. The drilling is a hunt for microscopic organisms, first introduced hundreds of millions of years ago, which have evolved to live in the shale 7,000 feet below the ground, at pressures 600 times that of the surface, and temperatures around 160 degrees F.

Little is known about what lives at those extreme depths and whether the microbes are even down there. But, if found and given a food source that allows them to thrive, they have properties that offer the potential to help drillers pump more natural gas and prolong the U.S. energy boom."

Sean Cockerham reports for the McClatchy Washington Bureau July 28, 2015.