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SignificanceThe rapid increase in shale gas production in recent years has led to increased attention to its potential negative environmental effects, including the risks of contaminating groundwater with methane and other substances. In this context, the uncontrolled gas migration that is triggered during well blowouts is an understudied environmental hazard. We show that the methane chemistry in shallow groundwater overlying the site of a catastrophic underground blowout continues to be impacted 50 y later. The occurrence of anaerobic methane oxidation limits the spatial extent to which the dissolved thermogenic methane plume could be observed and discerned from local biogenic methane sources. However, it also highlights the requirement to carry out monitoring in close proximity to potential gas leakage sources.

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