Stratigraphy, Sedimentology, and Diagenesis of Ordovician Carbonates in Maury County, Tennessee

Abstract

Ordovician carbonates from the Bigby-Cannon, Hermitage, and Carters formations (M5 and M4 sequences) crop out within Maury County, Tennessee, of the Central Basin. These upper middle Ordovician rocks of the Mohawkian series are mostly comprised of carbonates, with varying amounts of siliciclastic mudstone. Ordovician carbonates are associated with the Nashville Dome, which is part of the forelands adjacent to the Appalachian and Ouachita mountains. Central Tennessee and have been subject to Early Cambrian rifting, climate change, and orogenic events, which have affected the regional structure, deposition of strata, and diagenesis within the Nashville Dome region. Surficial denudation within central Tennessee caused the peripheral bulge to transform into an erosional basin. Stratigraphic sections were conducted throughout Maury County of the Bigby-Cannon, Hermitage, and Carters formations (M5 and M4 sequences) in order to evaluate variations in depositional environment. Sections were correlated and spatially interpreted through ArcGIS software in order to evaluate lateral and vertical changes in depositional systems within the study area. Thin sections analyses were conducted in order to differentiate carbonate facies and reconstruct the depositional environments and secondary alteration of the region. Initial results indicate spatial variability in depositional and diagenetic characteristics of the M5 and M4 sequences throughout Maury County, including preferential zones of depositional and secondary porosity development that may be utilized to better interpret fluid, both water and hydrocarbon, within these Ordovician strata. The culmination of this work is the development of a diagenetic model for the Ordovician carbonates in Maury County, Tennessee.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90219 © 2015 GCAGS, Houston, Texas, September 20-22, 2015