--> A New Cross Section From Western New York to North-Central Pennsylvania Illustrating the Regional Structural and Stratigraphic Framework of the Northern Appalachian Basin

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A New Cross Section From Western New York to North-Central Pennsylvania Illustrating the Regional Structural and Stratigraphic Framework of the Northern Appalachian Basin

Abstract

A new geologic cross section spanning from western New York to north-central Pennsylvania is the fifth in a series of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Appalachian basin structural cross sections designed to provide insight into the regional structural and stratigraphic framework of the Appalachian basin. The new cross section extends from the northern Appalachian basin in Genesee County, New York, across several high-angle faults (including the Clarendon-Linden Fault Zone of western New York) and the Rome trough of north-central Pennsylvania, and ends just south of the Allegheny structural front in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, a distance of 176 miles. Gamma ray and resistivity logs (induction and lateral logs) from 10 wells in New York and Pennsylvania were used to correlate stratigraphic units from well to well in the cross section. Major structural features exhibited in this cross section include: (1) bedding-plane detachment faults, associated thrust fault ramps, and a large ramp anticline at the Allegheny structural front, (2) the Rome trough, a failed rift basin created by Middle Cambrian extension involving basement rocks bounded by normal faults, and (3) several high-angle faults in western New York that experienced periods of reactivation and reversed movement throughout the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. In addition, several anticlines formed during the Alleghanian orogeny are present in the study area. The basement consists of Mesoproterozoic crystalline rocks of the Grenville province. Paleozoic sedimentary rocks range from Cambrian to Mississippian in age, and their total preserved thickness ranges from about 4,000 ft in Genesee County, New York to about 25,000 ft near the Allegheny structural front in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. The USGS Appalachian basin cross-sections may be of use to provide framework geologic information for research into petroleum systems (including Devonian shale gas from the Marcellus Shale and other formations), potential CO2 storage (in formations like the Oriskany Sandstone, the Salina Group, and the Lockport Dolomite), and fluid flow in the Appalachian basin.