Geology of Ray Sponaugle Well, Pendleton County, West Virginia

Abstract

United Fuel Gas Company well 8800-T (Ray Sponaugle #1), located on the east flank of the Wills Mountain anticline in southwestern Pendleton County, West Virginia, was spudded March 1, 1960, in the Martinsburg shale and was completed as a dry hole in July, at a total depth of 13,001 feet in the basal member of the Lurich formation, stratigraphically less than 1,500 feet below. Deviation surveys show true depth only 30.2 feet less than drilled depth. The borehole penetrated Ordovician and Cambrian formations in normal sequence to near the base of the Elbrook dolomite at 10,035 feet where a major thrust fault was encountered. Below this discontinuity, an overturned complexly deformed section of Middle Ordovician limestones continued to a depth of 11,050 feet where the top of the Edinburg limestone was encountered. After drilling 422 feet of Martinsburg shale the Edinburg was again reached. 1,529 feet of Middle Ordovician limestones were then drilled in normal sequence to total depth. Twelve metabentonite beds were used as an aid in correlating the repeated formations below the Wills Mountain thrust. Located near the western edge of the tightly folded central Appalachian Valley and Ridge structural province, the Sponaugle well has demanded a thorough reinterpretation of surface structure in the area.