The father of fracking, George Mitchell, passed away July 26, leaving many to think about the legacy he leaves behind. Though he didn’t exactly invent fracking, the Houston native revolutionized the process by introducing horizontal drilling in the 1990s. Even more than two decades later, Mitchell’s process of fracking is still a touchy subject. Though many are thrilled by the natural gas goldmine his drilling taps into, a lot of controversy surrounds the process, especially where the environment is concerned.
What is fracking? For millions of years, organisms found in rock formations buried deep under the ground have decomposed, creating natural gases. However, because the formations are so deep under Earth’s surface, the gas deposits were trapped in pockets and not easily accessible. It didn’t take long to discover that drilling into rock formations could break them, making it easy to extract the resources inside…