Another great article Richard, we were so lucky to have had so much tropical beach front property in our geologic history that has helped drive our energy independence and growth as a nation. My parents owned a cabin about 30 miles south of Titusville, PA where Drake drilled the first oil well in the world. Driving through towns like Oil City always made me wonder as a kid why it was called that. Very neat paleogeography maps and explanation that helps us understand the underlying conditions that helped create the oil reservoirs. Thank you.
The Sappington unit is in some places mappable as a formation, I think. It occurs at the Three Forks/Lodgepole contact so it is pretty much the equivalent of the Bakken. UMontana has a group studying the Sappington because of this. When we assisted Ray Gutschick with his Sappington project we found it to be a complex though thin package consisting of sltstones and limestones. A remarkable characteristic was the presence of brachiopod- and snail-cored oncolites often with worm tubes and arenaceous forams. Fossil sponges were also present. When we digested them in acetic acid the smell of petroleum was very strong. Joaquin Rodriguez of Hunter College, CUNY studied the brachs with Ray. See: https://www.kgs.ku.edu/Publications/Bulletins/169/Gutschick/index.html for images of these oncolites as well as a look at Ray's beautiful stratigraphic descriptions and figures.
Another great article Richard, we were so lucky to have had so much tropical beach front property in our geologic history that has helped drive our energy independence and growth as a nation. My parents owned a cabin about 30 miles south of Titusville, PA where Drake drilled the first oil well in the world. Driving through towns like Oil City always made me wonder as a kid why it was called that. Very neat paleogeography maps and explanation that helps us understand the underlying conditions that helped create the oil reservoirs. Thank you.
Thanks for the nice words!
The Sappington unit is in some places mappable as a formation, I think. It occurs at the Three Forks/Lodgepole contact so it is pretty much the equivalent of the Bakken. UMontana has a group studying the Sappington because of this. When we assisted Ray Gutschick with his Sappington project we found it to be a complex though thin package consisting of sltstones and limestones. A remarkable characteristic was the presence of brachiopod- and snail-cored oncolites often with worm tubes and arenaceous forams. Fossil sponges were also present. When we digested them in acetic acid the smell of petroleum was very strong. Joaquin Rodriguez of Hunter College, CUNY studied the brachs with Ray. See: https://www.kgs.ku.edu/Publications/Bulletins/169/Gutschick/index.html for images of these oncolites as well as a look at Ray's beautiful stratigraphic descriptions and figures.
Thanks Tom!
Very informative