Fayetteville Shale

Fayetteville Shale Sandstone Stratigraphic range: Mississippian
Outcrop of the lower Fayetteville shale in northern Arkansas.
Type	Geological formation
Underlies	Pitkin Limestone, Morrow Hale Sandstone
Overlies	Rudell Shale, Batesville Sandstone Moorefield Shale
Area	Arkansas
Thickness	50 to 500 feet (15 to 152 m)
Location
Region	Arkansas
Country	United States
Extent	50 miles (80 km)
Type section
Named for	Fayetteville, Arkansas
The Fayetteville formation runs widespread across Arkansas

The Fayetteville Shale is a geologic formation of Mississippian age (354–323 million years ago) composed of tight shale within the Arkoma basin of Arkansas. It is named for the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, and requires hydraulic fracturing to release the natural gas contained within.

The formation holds natural gas in a fine-grained rock matrix which requires hydraulic fracturing to release the gas. This process became cost-effective in some shales such as the Fayetteville after years of experimentation in the Barnett Shale in North Texas, especially when combined with horizontal drilling.

The US Energy Information Administration estimated that the 5,853 square miles (15,160 km²) shale play held 13,240 billion cubic ft (375 billion cubic meters) of unproved, technically recoverable gas. The average well was estimated to produce 1.3 billion cubic feet of gas.