Berea Sandstone

Last updated
Berea Sandstone
Stratigraphic range: Early Mississippian
Tournaisian
~350  Ma
O
S
D
C
P
T
J
K
Pg
N
Berea SS Crawford Co OH.jpg
Berea Sandstone exposed at headwaters of the Sandusky River, Crawford County, Ohio.
Type Formation
Unit of Waverly Group
Underlies Sunbury Shale
Overlies Bedford Shale and Ohio Shale
Lithology
Primary Sandstone, Siltstone
Location
Region Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky
CountryUnited States
Type section
Named for Berea, Ohio

Berea Sandstone, also known as Berea Grit, is a sandstone formation in the U.S. states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. It is named after Berea, Ohio. The sandstone has been used as a building stone and is a source of oil and gas.

Contents

Description

Diagram showing deposition of sand that would become Berea Sandstone Brea Sandstone Deposition.png
Diagram showing deposition of sand that would become Berea Sandstone

In the Appalachian Basin, Berea Sandstone is present in eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, western West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. [2] In the Michigan Basin, the sandstone is present in the eastern part of the state, thickest near Michigan's Thumb. [3] [4] The two deposits are separated by the Cincinnati Arch and are disconnected from each other. [3] The sandstone overlies the Bedford Shale and the Ohio Shale and underlies the Sunbury Shale. [2] Berea Sandstone is light gray to buff-colored in the form of siltstone and fine- to medium-grained sandstone. In places it is hard to distinguish from the underlying Bedford Shale. [5] Berea Sandstone is classified as a member of the Waverly Group. [6] Berea Sandstone is up to 72 meters (236 ft) thick in Lorain County, Ohio, [7] and up to 79 meters (259 ft) thick in Huron County, Michigan. [4]

The sandstone was named "Berea Grit" by Ohio geologist J. S. Newberry in 1874. He named it after Berea, Ohio, for its extensive quarries of the stone. [8]

In Michigan, the petroleum industry has referred to the Ellsworth Shale as "Berea", but this formation is distinct from Berea Sandstone and is laterally separated by Antrim Shale. [9]

Age and formation

Fig 03 Sketch map.jpg

Berea Sandstone was formed in the Late Devonian period. [10] [11] Prior to the 1970s, it was assigned a Mississippian age. [10] The Devonian-Carboniferous boundary was realigned based on research from Europe, but various geologists were not aware of the changes and so incorrectly assigned Berea Sandstone to the Kinderhookian (early Mississippian). [10] [12]

The majority of the sand which formed the Berea Sandstone came from the north, flowing in a river from the highlands of eastern Canada. [13] [14] It was deposited in a river delta environment. [15] Pepper, et al., hypothesized that the river flowed first into the Ohio basin before switching course to the Michigan basin, thus the Michigan Berea Sandstone would be slightly younger. [14] There is a downwarp in the Cincinnati arch, called the Ontario sag, that if it was present at the formation of Berea Sandstone, could mean that it formed a continuous belt of sediment between the Appalachian and Michigan basins. Nevertheless, subsequent erosion disconnected the two deposits. [3]

Fossils

Berea Sandstone is generally unfossiliferous. [16] [17] However some fossils have been found, including fish of the genera Ctenacanthus and Gonatodus , plants of the genus Annularia , and some brachiopods. [18]

Uses

The Johnson County Courthouse in Iowa is built of Berea Sandstone. Johnson county courhouse iowa.jpg
The Johnson County Courthouse in Iowa is built of Berea Sandstone.

Buildings constructed of Berea Sandstone include the Johnson County Courthouse in Iowa [19] and the Brown County Courthouse in South Dakota. [20] The Centre Block building of the Parliament of Canada, both before and after reconstruction, uses Berea Sandstone as window and door trim. [21]

Berea Sandstone has also been used as flagstone and for paving. Fine grained stone has been used for grindstones and whetstones. [22]

Industry

Quarrying

Quarry No. 6 of the Cleveland Stone Company at Berea, Ohio, circa 1893 Berea Quarry No. 6.jpg
Quarry No. 6 of the Cleveland Stone Company at Berea, Ohio, circa 1893

Quarrying of Berea Sandstone began in 1830. Until around 1840 or 1845, only grindstones were produced before diversifying into building and flagstones. More than a dozen different companies quarried the sandstone, before all consolidating into the Cleveland Stone Company by 1893, which was the largest sandstone producer in the United States at the time. [23]

Oil and gas

Berea Sandstone is a host of oil and natural gas. Commercial gas development began in 1859–60 with a well at East Liverpool, Ohio. Oil was discovered in the Berea Sandstone in 1860 in Mecca Township, Trumbull County, Ohio. [24] In Michigan, Berea Sandstone oil was first discovered in 1925 at Saginaw; this field accounted for the entirety of Michigan's oil production until 1927. [25] By 2011, oil production from Berea Sandstone led northeastern Kentucky to be the most productive region of that state. [26]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berea, Ohio</span> City in Ohio, United States

Berea is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States and is a western suburb of Cleveland. The population was 18,545 at the 2020 census. Berea is home to Baldwin Wallace University, as well as the training facility for the Cleveland Browns and the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds.

Tinker's Creek, in Cuyahoga, Summit and Portage counties, is the largest tributary of the Cuyahoga River, providing about a third of its flow into Lake Erie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chagrin River</span> River in Ohio, United States

The Chagrin River is located in Northeast Ohio. The river has two branches, the Aurora Branch and East Branch. Of three hypotheses as to the origin of the name, the most probable is that it is a corruption of the name of a Frenchman, Sieur de Seguin, who established a trading post on the river ca. 1742. The Chagrin River runs through suburban areas of Greater Cleveland in Cuyahoga, Geauga, and Portage counties, transects two Cleveland Metroparks reservations, and then meanders into nearby Lake County before emptying into Lake Erie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michigan Basin</span> Geologic basin centered on the Lower Peninsula of Michigan

The Michigan Basin is a geologic basin centered on the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The feature is represented by a nearly circular pattern of geologic sedimentary strata in the area with a nearly uniform structural dip toward the center of the peninsula.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamilton Group</span> Geological Group in North America

The Hamilton Group is a Devonian-age geological group which is located in the Appalachian region of the United States. It is present in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, northwestern Virginia and Ontario, Canada, and is mainly composed of marine shale with some sandstone.

The Devonian Mahantango Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. It is named for the North branch of the Mahantango Creek in Perry and Juniata counties in Pennsylvania. It is a member of the Hamilton Group, along with the underlying the Marcellus Formation Shale. South of Tuscarora Mountain in south central Pennsylvania, the lower members of this unit were also mapped as the Montebello Formation. Details of the type section and of stratigraphic nomenclature for this unit as used by the U.S. Geological Survey are available on-line at the National Geologic Map Database.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pottsville Formation</span>

The Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, western Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, and Alabama. It is a major ridge-former in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of the eastern United States. The Pottsville Formation is conspicuous at many sites along the Allegheny Front, the eastern escarpment of the Allegheny or Appalachian Plateau.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illinois Basin</span>

The Illinois Basin is a Paleozoic depositional and structural basin in the United States, centered in and underlying most of the state of Illinois, and extending into southwestern Indiana and western Kentucky. The basin is elongate, extending approximately 400 miles (640 km) northwest-southeast, and 200 miles (320 km) southwest-northeast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bedford Shale</span> Geological formation in the United States

The Bedford Shale is a shale geologic formation in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Albany Shale</span>

The New Albany Shale is an organic-rich geologic formation of Devonian and Mississippian age in the Illinois Basin of the United States. It is a major source of hydrocarbons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casselman Formation</span> Geological formation in the United States

The Casselman Formation mapped sedimentary bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia, of Pennsylvanian age. It is the uppermost of two formations in the Conemaugh Group, the lower being the Glenshaw Formation. The boundary between these two units is the top of the marine Ames Limestone. The Conemaugh Group overlies the Upper Freeport coal bed of the Allegheny Formation and underlies the Pittsburgh coal seam of the Monongahela Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logan Formation</span> Lower Carboniferous sedimentary formation in West Virginia, United States

The Logan Formation is the name given to a Lower Carboniferous siltstone, sandstone and conglomeratic unit exposed in east-central Ohio and parts of western West Virginia, USA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenshaw Formation</span> Geological formation in the United States

The Glenshaw Formation is a mapped sedimentary bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio, of Pennsylvanian age. It is the lower of two formations in the Conemaugh Group, the upper being the Casselman Formation. The boundary between these two units is the top of the marine Ames Limestone. The Conemaugh Group overlies the Upper Freeport coal bed of the Allegheny Formation and underlies the Pittsburgh coal seam of the Monongahela Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington oil field</span>

The Washington oil field is an oil field and in Washington County, Pennsylvania. It also produced natural gas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waverly Group</span> Geologic group in the United States

The Waverly Group is a geologic group in Michigan and Ohio. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluestone Formation</span>

The Bluestone Formation is a geologic formation in West Virginia. It is the youngest unit of the Upper Mississippian-age Mauch Chunk Group. A pronounced unconformity separates the upper boundary of the Bluestone Formation from sandstones of the overlying Pennsylvanian-age Pocahontas Formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluefield Formation</span>

The Bluefield Formation is a geologic formation in West Virginia. It preserves fossils dating back to the Mississippian subperiod of the Carboniferous period. Sediments of this age formed along a large marine basin lying in the region of what is now the Appalachian Plateau. The Bluefield Formation is the lowest section of the primarily siliciclastic Mauch Chunk Group, underlying the Stony Gap Sandstone Member of the Hinton Formation and overlying the limestone-rich Greenbrier Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cleveland Shale</span> Geologic formation in the United States

The Cleveland Shale, also referred to as the Cleveland Member, is a shale geologic formation in the eastern United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chagrin Shale</span> Geological formation in the United States

The Chagrin Shale is a shale geologic formation in the eastern United States that is approximately 365 million years old. The Chagrin Shale is a gray shale that begins thin and deep underground in north-central Ohio. As it proceeds east, the formation thickens, rises to the surface, and contains greater amounts of siltstone.

The geology of Ohio formed beginning more than one billion years ago in the Proterozoic eon of the Precambrian. The igneous and metamorphic crystalline basement rock is poorly understood except through deep boreholes and does not outcrop at the surface. The basement rock is divided between the Grenville Province and Superior Province. When the Grenville Province crust collided with Proto-North America, it launched the Grenville orogeny, a major mountain building event. The Grenville mountains eroded, filling in rift basins and Ohio was flooded and periodically exposed as dry land throughout the Paleozoic. In addition to marine carbonates such as limestone and dolomite, large deposits of shale and sandstone formed as subsequent mountain building events such as the Taconic orogeny and Acadian orogeny led to additional sediment deposition. Ohio transitioned to dryland conditions in the Pennsylvanian, forming large coal swamps and the region has been dryland ever since. Until the Pleistocene glaciations erased these features, the landscape was cut with deep stream valleys, which scoured away hundreds of meters of rock leaving little trace of geologic history in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

References

  1. Pepper, De Witt & Demarest 1954, p. 71.
  2. 1 2 Pepper, De Witt & Demarest 1954, p. 1.
  3. 1 2 3 Pepper, De Witt & Demarest 1954, p. 97.
  4. 1 2 Catacosinos & Daniels 1991, p. 211.
  5. Collins 1979, p. E12.
  6. Collins 1979, pp. E4–E5.
  7. Collins 1979, pp. E12–E13.
  8. J. S. Newberry (1874). Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio. Nevins & Myers.
  9. Catacosinos & Daniels 1991, p. 212.
  10. 1 2 3 Catacosinos & Daniels 1991, p. 165.
  11. Fitch, Harold (2000). "Stratigraphic Nomenclature for Michigan" (PDF). Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Geological Survey Division.
  12. De Witt 1970, p. G1.
  13. Pepper, De Witt & Demarest 1954, p. 95.
  14. 1 2 Pepper, De Witt & Demarest 1954, p. 98.
  15. Ells 1979, p. J7.
  16. Pepper, De Witt & Demarest 1954, p. 34.
  17. De Witt 1970, pp. G5–G6.
  18. Collins 1979, p. E17.
  19. Alan L. Rossmann (March 27, 1975). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Johnson County Courthouse" (PDF). National Park Service.[ permanent dead link ]
  20. Edith M. French (June 3, 1976). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Brown County Courthouse" (PDF). National Park Service.[ permanent dead link ]
  21. Lawrence, D. E. (March 2001). "Building Stones of Canada's Federal Parliament Buildings". Geoscience Canada. 28 (1). Retrieved February 1, 2018.
  22. Wilson, Stella Shoemaker (1902). Ohio. The Macmillan Company. pp. 47–48.
  23. Rowley, Ira P. (1893). "Sandstone Interests of Northern Ohio - IV". Stone; an Illustrated Magazine. D. H. Ranck Publishing Company. pp. 200–203.
  24. Collins 1979, p. E23.
  25. Ells 1979, pp. J14–J15.
  26. "Final report of the Berea Sandstone Petroleum System Consortium released by KGS". Kentucky Geological Survey. 2017. Retrieved February 27, 2018.

Bibliography

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