The Middle Devonian Dundee Formation is the most prolific oil-producing unit in the Michigan Basin, with more than 375 million bbl of oil produced to date. Reservoir types in the Dundee Formation can be fracture controlled or facies controlled, and each type may have been diagenetically modified. Although fracture-controlled reservoirs produce more oil than facies-controlled reservoirs, little is known about the process by which they were formed and diagenetically modified.

In parts of the Dundee, preexisting sedimentary fabrics have been strongly overprinted by medium- to coarse-grained dolomite. Dolomitized intervals contain planar and saddle dolomite, with minor calcite, anhydrite, pyrite, and uncommon fluorite. Fluid-inclusion analyses of two-phase aqueous inclusions in dolomite and calcite suggest that some water-rock interaction in these rocks occurred at temperatures as high as 120–150C in the presence of dense Na-Ca-Mg-Cl brines. These data, in conjunction with published organic maturity data and burial reconstructions, are not easily explained by a long-term burial model and have important implications for the thermal history of the Michigan Basin. The data are best explained by a model involving short-duration transport of fluids and heat from deeper parts of the basin along major fault and fracture zones connected to structures in the Precambrian basement. These data give new insight into the hydrothermal processes responsible for the formation of these reservoirs.