Pennsylvania State University researchers who have been charged with monitoring 21 seismograph stations across the state are also reportedly studying the geological structure of the South Newark Basin. The $269,000 study is part of a federal program to research earthquakes nationwide, and was contracted to the university by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) this summer, according to Philadelphia’s Intelligencer newspaper, which gathered the information through a series of right-to-know requests. In 2012 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the South Newark was one of three Mesozoic shale basins along the East Coast with the “most resource potential” for oil and gas producers (see Shale Daily, June 21, 2012). There is a 95% chance that at least 363 Bcf of undiscovered natural gas is locked in the formation, along with 1 million bbl of undiscovered natural gas liquids, USGS said. Following the USGS report, the General Assembly days later adopted a drilling moratorium for the South Newark Basin, which is located across upscale, ex-urban Philadelphia counties (see Shale Daily, July 3, 2012). The legislation forbid the state’s Department of Environmental Protection from issuing well permits in the basin until DCNR completed a study of “the practical resource recovery implications” of the USGS report and the fiscal impact of oil and gas operations in the basin. Oil and gas operations in the South Newark Basin are already restricted by the Delaware River Basin Commission‘s de facto moratorium on exploration and development (see Shale Daily,June 16, 2010).