AAP: The white sand beaches in Pennsylvania are a mile underground, where salt water and fine mesh sand luxuriate in the fracks of the Marcellus Shale.
The volume of frack sand used at each well to prop open newly created fissures and allow gas to flow to the wellbore has been on the rise over the past year. By some estimates, the increase has been dramatic.
"Most customers are pumping as much as they can," said Iain McIntosh, vice president at Baker Hughes, a Texas-based oil and gas service firm...