By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF

“Gasland,” a film that turns a harshly critical eye on the perils of natural gas drilling, has earned an Academy Award nomination for best documentary.

The Oscar nod guarantees even wider exposure for the controversial film, which uses images of flames leaping from kitchen faucets and polluted streams to make an argument for the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling technique where water and chemicals are injected at high pressure deep underground to free up previously inaccessible natural gas deposits.