WILKES-BARRE — Geologists say that northeast Pennsylvania’s portion of a rock formation that lies below the Marcellus Shale probably doesn’t hold substantial amounts of the natural gas.

Penn State professor Terry Engelder tells The Citizens’ Voice of Wilkes-Barre that the Utica Shale formation has likely been sapped of natural gas by the heat that created the anthracite coal.

The Utica Shale is about two-and-a-half miles beneath the surface. That’s about a mile below the gas-rich Marcellus Shale.