CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

MEADVILLE -- There is a land rush going on across Pennsylvania, but buyers aren't interested in the land itself.

Buyers are interested in what lies beneath the earth's surface -- mineral rights to natural gas deposits.

Record high crude oil and natural gas prices have already pushed up drilling activity in northwestern Pennsylvania and other areas of the state.

But now that already heightened interest is spreading.

The reason is the Marcellus Formation -- a hardly tapped formation of deep gas-bearing shale that drilling companies have only recently found a way to exploit.


Development companies, drilling companies and speculators have been crisscrossing the state, trying to lease mineral rights from landowners.

Pennsylvania State University professor and geologist Terry Engelder likens today's rush to the one that followed when Edwin Drake struck oil near Titusville in 1859.

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