Aug 25, 2018 4 min read

Saying Kris Carter has rocks in her head would be highly insulting – in a traditional sense. But … she is a geologist, and rocks rock her world.

“I liked science in high school and figured I’d do something in that,” she said, reflecting on her Immaculate Conception days, when she was Kris Egers, a Washington kid attending the parochial school downtown.

Carter is now an assistant state geologist working for the Pennsylvania Geological Survey. Since 2013, she has managed the Survey’s Economic Geology Division, made up of two sections: Petroleum and Subsurface Geology in Pittsburgh and Mineral Resource Analysis in Middletown. Carter is based on Washington’s Landing, an island along the Allegheny River across from the Strip District.

Who says water and oil don’t mix?

“We do strictly oil and gas and subsurface geology,” said Carter, a member of the IC class of 1987, three years before the school shut down. “We do tracking. What type of well will it be? How thick is it? Is it going to be a productive play? The survey has a database of oil and gas well records and interpreted data.”

That database is called the EDWIN System, named after Col. Edwin Drake, who in 1859 drilled the well that made Titusville the birthplace of the modern oil industry.

Pennsylvania Geological Survey’s work does not benefit the Keystone State alone. “We partner with the states (in the greater Appalachian Basin),” said Carter, who has been with the Geological Survey since 2001.

She supervises eight staffers, five in Pittsburgh, three in Middletown – near Harrisburg. The Geological Survey is a bureau – a small bureau – within the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which employs more than 2,000.

As a subsurface specialist, she has been an active participant in the Marcellus Shale transformation over the past decade. Dry gas, wet gas, coal – the bounty of resources available under the land she trod as a youth impresses her.

“Pennsylvania has a relatively large footprint in the Appalachian Basin,” Carter said, referring to the home region of the Marcellus and Utica shale plays. “The southwest corner (of the state) is blessed with so many energy resources.

“It’s great to know there’s more than just one world-class resource here. But we need infrastructure to get that stuff (natural gas) to the Midwest or the Gulf. We’re at the center of the country. We’re looking at exporting rather than bringing it in.”

That, of course, is a reference to pipelines. The Mariner East I and II projects, which stretch across the commonwealth, have been beset by violations, legal issues and delays. Companies in the region are looking for ways to store gas and liquids for eventual transport.

Carter, who lives in Canonsburg, spoke at a June conference in Southpointe about establishing a natural gas liquids storage hub in the region. Building a hub in Washington or Greene counties, she said, is a possibility, but the process could take years.

Although coal currently has a bad name ecologically – it burns cleaner than ever, but emission levels remain high – Carter is not one to dismiss any source.

“I think it’s important that economics drive what energy resources or combination of resources we use,” she said. “Right now, though, natural gas seems hard to beat. It’s a resource we have here.”

Above ground, inside the survey’s offices, Brian Dunst is keenly aware of another energy source: Kris Carter. She has been his supervisor during the five years Dunst has been a geologist supervisor on the island.

“She is one of the most organized people I know,” said Dunst, a South Strabane Township resident originally from the Erie area. “We juggle a lot of things day to day and other projects out of this office. We’d be struggling a lot more without her leadership.

“Kris is one of the reasons I wanted this job, because I wanted the opportunity to work for her and with her.”

Job-oriented juggling isn’t Carter’s only magician’s skill. She and her husband, Jeff, have two children: son Owen, a freshman at Canon-McMillan High School, and daughter Josie, a seventh-grader at the middle school.

A year ago, Carter was appointed an adjunct instructor at Allegheny College, where she secured her bachelor’s degree in geology and environmental science – a dual major. “I teach oil and gas geology to students. I get to give back to the school.”

After leaving Allegheny, Carter got a master’s in geological sciences from Lehigh University.

Now she’s a rock star.