Four Corners Methane Hot Spot

The San Juan Basin contains the Fruitland coal formation. Ashley Ager, a geologist with LT Environmental, Inc., a company with oil and gas industry contracts, has argued that the leak is naturally occurring due to this formation contacting the surface.

However, NASA researchers concluded in 2016 that oil and gas production and distribution activities were principally responsible for the methane releases. The Four Corners area includes other methane sources such as seepage from coal mines, but researchers found these sources too small to explain the bulk of the observed emissions.