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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 54 (1970)

Issue: 5. (May)

First Page: 848

Last Page: 849

Title: Silurian Reef in Michigan Basin--Stratigraphic-, Facial-, and Reservoir-Properties Analysis: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Dan Gill, Louis I. Briggs

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

The Belle River Mills gas field (China Twp., St. Clair Co.), discovered in 1961 and since 1965 utilized as an underground gas-storage reservoir, is one of 42 known reefs of Niagaran (Middle Silurian) age in southeastern Michigan, 36 of which are oil or gas producers. The reef is an elongate pinnacle structure, about 2 mi long and 0.75 mi wide. It attains a maximum relief of 420 ft with slopes ranging from 10 to 30°.

Three major growth phases are recognized: (1) biohermal, consisting of skeletal (crinoid, bryozoan, coral, and tabular stromatoporoid) wackestone and packstone rudites and arenites; (2) organic reef, consisting of a reef core (massive stromatoporoids, corals, and algae?) and associated interbedded and interfingering lithofacies of "backreef" skeletal wackestone rudite, burrowed mudstone and laminite, and coarse skeletal forereef talus; and (3) supratidal cover complex, composed of stratified algal stromatolites, flat pebble conglomerates, oncolites, and burrowed pelletal mud.

The mound developed to a height of 150 ft in quiet, relatively deep water. The reef grew in turbulent water, attaining a height of 300 ft above the surrounding sea floor. Reef growth stopped as a result of shallowing and increased salinity, which led to the deposition of the supratidal complex.

A conglomerate composed of algal stromatolite pebbles and boulders derived from the supratidal complex phase is present 400 ft below the reef crest at the base of the offreef Salina Group. It is covered by the A-1 anhydrite (15 ft) and the A-1 carbonate (120 ft) which both wedge out toward the reef walls.

The A-1 carbonate is finely laminated, finely crystalline dolomite devoid of fossils, in places pelletal with algal mats, birdseye, and desiccation features and having an abundance of various textural forms of anhydrite. It is indicative of a very shallow-marine, partly supratidal environment. The conglomerate and the environmental interpretation of the A-1 carbonate demonstrate that the offreef sequence is post-reef in age and that the reef was subaerially exposed during the deposition of the overlying units. Dolomitization and diagenetic processes of leaching and reprecipitation associated

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with this exposure period destroyed much of the original depositional texture.

A statistical data-reduction method was developed and used to construct a representative picture of the spatial distribution of reservoir properties. There is a correlation between stratigraphic and reservoir facies, markedly modified by diagenesis.

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