Dan Onorato and Tom Corbett have been sparring for months now over the possibility of imposing a severance tax on Marcellus Shale extraction in the Keystone State.

Onorato wants a tax to fund an environmental protection fund he says has been depleted, and to cover repair costs of increased public road and utility use from the extraction. Corbett, for his part, wants no tax, saying it could suffocate an industry still in embryo in the state, predicting that the economic growth resulting from extraction would itself increase existing tax revenues to cover any disaster or impact costs.

But no one has yet summed up the reason why Marcellus Shale has become one of the focal points in this election in a forehead-smackingly obvious way. Until now.

Penn State’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research and distilled the industry and its burgeoning growth and potential into pictures, below, and more here.

The University had predicted as many as 80,000 jobs could ultimately result from extraction — this, in a state where more than 600,000 are unemployed as a result of what Vice President Biden has deemed the Great Recession.