How to Use shale in a Sentence

shale

noun
  • This ocean canyon heaves waves of shale and basalt, quartz and silt.
    — Literary Hub, 18 Mar. 2026
  • My brown daughter by the slate-gray sea puts broken shells and bits of shale in stacks.
    — Kelly Scott Franklin, National Review, 17 Feb. 2022
  • That push has stunted growth in all but one of the oil fields that fueled the shale boom.
    — Benoit Faucon, WSJ, 17 Oct. 2021
  • The brown sand stretches hard and smooth to the rock-shale shelf marking the high-tide line.
    — Washington Post, 4 June 2019
  • That makes shale a very attractive bet in the post-Covid world.
    — Dan Eberhart, Forbes, 20 Mar. 2021
  • The shale boom changed everything.
    — Jordan Blum, Fortune, 19 May 2026
  • Gabrielle completed the look with studded leather pumps in a shade of shale.
    — Julia Teti, WWD, 12 Dec. 2024
  • That means shale could once again come to the rescue if high oil prices become an issue.
    — Dan Eberhart, Forbes, 6 Dec. 2021
  • Under this technique, drillers bore through thousands of feet of earth to reach the shale.
    — Timothy Puko, WSJ, 8 Oct. 2020
  • But worse than the discomfort was the way that the shale sucked away my body’s vital heat.
    — Jim Carmichel, Outdoor Life, 25 July 2024
  • The shale wells will return someday, when another boom roars through the oil patch.
    — Richard Mason, Arkansas Online, 20 Sep. 2020
  • Frackers struggled to turn a profit amid the shale boom’s drilling frenzy.
    — Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 10 Feb. 2022
  • Running through the shale—a relatively soft rock—was a fault.
    — Bypaul Voosen, science.org, 7 Nov. 2024
  • Now, there are some shale patches that can make a profit at $15 a barrel.
    — David Iaconangelo, The Christian Science Monitor, 20 June 2017
  • The refuse pile consisted of coal waste, carbonaceous shale, and coal ash.
    — Logan Smith, CBS News, 11 Apr. 2026
  • But the bigger problem for the shale industry is the lack of new wells being drilled.
    — Kevin Crowley, Fortune, 22 Apr. 2020
  • It was triggered by the massive supply from the US shale boom.
    — Brett Owens, Forbes, 5 Dec. 2024
  • Like the shale boom, the coming supply surge is a sudden change in dynamics.
    — Clifford Krauss, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2019
  • The doctor’s horse, Puffer, slipped on the shale and slid about 10 feet down the mountain.
    — Ed Wiseman, Outdoor Life, 13 Feb. 2023
  • Each cell starts as a hole in the ground lined with a clay-like substance made from shale and a sturdy plastic liner.
    — Natalie Wallington, Kansas City Star, 22 Apr. 2024
  • The path was simply a horizontal shelf of the shale and limestone bedrock, maybe eight feet wide.
    — Rolling Stone, 13 Oct. 2021
  • This is not to say that the current shale boom was the result of high prices in the 2000s.
    — Michael Lynch, Forbes, 17 May 2022
  • Overcoming three years of slumping prices proved the resiliency of the shale boom.
    — Clifford Krauss, The Seattle Times, 28 Jan. 2018
  • Unlike crude oil, which pools in subterranean reservoirs, shale oil is found within shale rocks.
    — Stefanie Waldek, Space.com, 12 Jan. 2026
  • The spoiler, which could keep prices weighed down for a while, is the US shale industry.
    — Laurent Belsie, The Christian Science Monitor, 25 May 2017
  • Our region made the misstep of putting too many eggs in the shale and the petrochemical basket.
    — Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2021
  • And most of the increase has occurred since 2005, when shale-gas came onstream.
    — Ian Palmer, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2021
  • In Houston and throughout the US, the shale market is quite busy.
    — Ilene Bassler, Houston Chronicle, 12 July 2018
  • But the country was saved by the shale revolution, which took off in 2003.
    — Ian Dexter Palmer, Forbes.com, 27 May 2026
  • Few of the shale boom’s sideshows have flamed out quite like Wisconsin’s Northern White sand.
    — Alexander Osipovich, WSJ, 8 Oct. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shale.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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