The goal of eastern gas shales research is to develop the scientific and engineering knowledge base on the recovery of natural gas from shale formations that underlie the Appalachian, Illinois, and Michigan Basins. Currently, research focuses on fundamental reservoir properties from wells of opportunity, and on the installation of a second offset well test site for understanding reservoir flow behavior. This research entails gathering reservoir property data from 10 sites that have favorable geology and geochemistry in areas of nonestablished production. This information will quantify the magnitude of matrix and fracture porosity and permeability and reservoir anisotropy, and will improve the ability to quantify technically recoverable resources for these areas of unknown potential. Also under study are methods to increase recovery efficiency from a directionally drilled well in an area of historical production, wherein less than 10% of the available gas-in-place is typically produced by stimulated vertical wells. Analysis of shale gas production mechanisms indicates that an increase in the amount of surface area connected to the borehole may result in more of the adsorbed gas being released and produced over the entire life of the well. Increased recovery efficiency is thought to be achievable using a directionally deviated well that can be designed to cross natural fractures and can be stimulated to increase the surface area in contact with the borehole. The existing reservoir model (SUGAR-MD) has been modified to permit the expected performance of stimulated, deviated wells to be simulated. The drilling, coring, logging, and testing of a directionally deviated well is a major field verification effort that measures the key reservoir properties used in the simulator and also the productivity improvement over that of stimulated vertical wells in the area. 7 refs., 6 figs., 3 tabs.