--> Redefined Sauk sequence rocks in the Ohio region suggest emerging plays on the Ohio Platform and adjacent Rome Trough

AAPG Eastern Section Meeting

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Redefined Sauk sequence rocks in the Ohio region suggest emerging plays on the Ohio Platform and adjacent Rome Trough

Abstract

The search for new hydrocarbon reserves in unconventional plays and targets for CO2 sequestration has provided new data for the updating the Sauk sequence (Knox and pre-Knox) stratigraphy of the west central Appalachian Basin. Redefined sub-Knox units of the Ohio region illustrate that the Mt. Simon Sandstone is not the regional basal “blanket sandstone,” deposited on a Precambrian peneplain. The Ohio term Rome Formation is not correlative to the Rome Formation of the Rome Trough. The term Sandusky formation replaces Ohio's now obsolete term Rome Formation. The Sandusky formation has up to six mappable quartz arenite subunits separated by tongues of highstand marine dolostone. The quartz arenite subunits may have potential stratigraphic traps along pinchouts and disconformities on the Ohio Platform and along the Rome Trough High. The Sandusky may also have promise in stratigraphic and structural traps within the Rome Trough. Historical production and shows in the Knox and Sandusky of the southeastern Ohio River region point to the Cambrian Rogersville Shale as a more likely source rock than Ordovician Point Pleasant/Utica for these emerging plays. Recent deep drilling activity in the Rome Trough of northeastern Kentucky and northwestern West Virginia reaffirms the Rogersville source rock potential.