Controls on Deposition of the St. Peter Sandstone (Middle-Late Ordovician), Michigan Basin

Abstract

The St. Peter Sandstone (Middle-late Ordovician) of the Michigan basin represents an approximately 10-m.y. interval of clastic deposition in an otherwise carbonate-dominated Ordovician succession. This interval, up to 320 m thick, also coincides with a change in basin configuration from the nearly circular depocenter of the underlying Shakopee Formation to an east-west elongate trough situated west to Saginaw Bay. Interpretation of well logs and core from throughout the basin indicates that the clastics are composed of 20-25 sequences upper shoreface to tidal-flat environments. The sequences are interbedded with heavily bioturbated, shaly, lower shoreface sandstones (1-14 m thick) and, in the central and southeastern parts of the basin, with carbonate shales, stromatolites, and oolitic grain-stones (2-39 m thick). The eastern and southeastern margins of the basin contain the thickest carbonate accumulations. Hydrocarbons fields are located over structural highs formed by reactivation of basement structures. Detailed comparison of well logs within field shows that sedimentary cycles thin over the structures as a result of the local reduction in the formation of accommodation space by syndepositional movements on the faults. The presence of thick carbonates along the southeastern margin of the basin is a result of the combination of distance form the clasticmore » source and the episodic formation of accommodation space by syndepositional normal faulting along the basin margin.« less