In all honesty, I'd never heard of the term fracking until I read about it at the DUmp.
I've never read about it anyplace else.
I'd heard of it all my life because there was always a lot of oil well drilling going on.
But in the old days, the fracturing I heard about was very dangerous.
They'd lower containers of pure nitroglycerin down to the bottom of the well, and set it off with a dynamite cap.
It would make a tremendous explosion, much stronger than dynamite, fracturing the oil bearing rock and allowing the oil to flow to the well.
We heard tales about guys paid huge amounts back around the turn of the century to deliver nitro to the wells, using mule-drawn wagons over primitive dirt roads. The nitro was very touchy, especially in warm weather, and could be set off by a hard jolt. It apparently wasn't uncommon for those drivers to be vaporized, but if they lasted only a short while their families were left well off.
The industry changed to hydraulic fracturing decades ago, from what I heard, though I've never nadined it.