Natural gas from shale formation: A research profile

With the unfolding shale gas revolution, the literature related to shale gas has grown dramatically, particularly in the past decades. This study aims at providing updated and systemic research information for scientists, researchers, engineers, policymakers, and other stakeholders of shale gas to stimulate wide discussion about the future studies of shale gas through the investigation of shale gas literature cited on the Science Citation Index Expanded Web of Science database between 1990 and 2014. Using bibliometric techniques and the social network method, we attempt to explore three areas of the research profile: (1) country productivity distribution, (2) country collaboration patterns, and (3) research topics analysis. First, the results show that the USA was the largest contributor of the literature on the subject, followed by China and Canada. Moreover, examining overall trends show that the research on shale gas saw a significant growth along with greater participation in the number of countries. Second, the USA was the most frequent partner among all the international collaborative studies. The number of studies in most European countries was not as high as that in Asian countries. However, their collaboration was considerably active in country-to-country collaboration of shale gas. Third, the trend for all research topics is an increasing one, with the exception of Geochemistry Geophysics. Particularly, the areas of engineering, energy fuels, and geology have grown sharply over the past two decades. However, water resources have become an extremely hot topic since 2012. The research topic analysis results indicate that the current shale gas development is closely related to the three hot topics (engineering, energy fuels, and geology), whereas its future hinges on water resources. In conclusion, future studies of shale gas are suggested to stimulate more discussion for the wide community of those interested in shale gas.