Publisher's copyright statement: NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Marine and petroleum geology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A denitive version was subsequently published in Marine and petroleum geology, 37(1), 2012, 10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2012.04.001 Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 Vertical Extent of Hydraulic Fractures 2 ABSTRACTThe maximum reported height of an upward propagating hydraulic fracture from several thousand fracturing operations in the Marcellus, Barnett, Woodford and Eagleford shale (USA) is ~ 588 m. Of the 1170 natural hydraulic fracture networks offshore of West Africa and mid-Norway it is ~ 1106 m. Based on these empirical data, the probability of a stimulated and natural hydraulic fracture extending vertically > 500 m is ~ 1% and ~ 15% respectively. The datasets and statistics should help inform decisions on the safe vertical separation between hydraulic fracturing and rock strata not intended for intersection.

Citation for published item:xewportD veo F nd eplinD endrew gF nd qluy sD ton qF nd qreenwellD rF ghristopher nd qr¤ o keD h rren F @PHISA 9qeo hemi l nd lithologi l ontrols on potenti l sh le reservoir X r oniferous rolywell h leD lesF9D w rine nd petroleum geologyFD UI F ppF IWVEPIHFFurther information on publisher's website: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO• the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.

No abstract