St. Peter Sandstone, Illinois Basin

General Setting

The Illinois Basin is an elongate intracratonic basin located mostly in central and southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and western Kentucky (Collinson and others, 1988). It extends some 600 km northwest to southeast and 320 northeast to southwest. The greatest thickness of sedimentary fill is in southern Illinois and western Kentucky, where a maximum of 7,000 m of Paleozoic sedimentary fill occurs.

Information Search and Selection

The deeper portions of the Illinois Basin are the focus of this investigation because this area contains strata that are sufficiently deep, porous and permeable, and hydraulically isolated from fresh-water aquifers to make potential CO2 sequestration targets. Moreover, southern Illinois and western Kentucky are areas with major CO2 producers (fig. 1).

The subsurface of this area has been well studied, the research driven by the search for domestic and industrial water supplies, petroleum, and, to a minor extent, subsurface disposal of industrial liquid wastes. However, the majority of study has been associated with relatively shallow (fresh-water) aquifers and shallow (Mississipian) hydrocarbon-bearing horizons. There have only been a few brine-aquifer waste-disposal studies in the region (Bergstrom, 1968; Cartwright and others, 1981; Roy and others, 1988). Although these provide excellent, site-specific information, they do not provide information regarding spatial distribution of deep-brine-aquifer characteristics.

A number of potential porous, permeable and continuous sand units within the southern Illinois Basin area could potentially be used for CO2 sequestration. Some of these include the Cambrian Mount Simon, Eau Claire, Gatesville, and Ironton Sandstones, as well as the Lower Ordovician Gunter and New Richmond Sandstones. However, we chose to focus on the Middle Ordovician St. Peter Sandstone for inclusion in the GIS because this unit is a regionally continuous porous and permeable sandstone that is overlain by the thick, impermeable, regionally extensive, Maquoketa Shale Group, which serves as an aquiclude (Young, 1992a, b). The Mt. Simon Sandstone is also characterized for study in this area in the GIS.

The St. Peter Sandstone has been studied in the region for both hydrocarbon and liquid waste-disposal potential (Hoholick, 1980; Kreutzfeld, 1982; Zuppeman and Keith, 1988). There have been a number of regional studies addressing the hydrogeologic properties of the St. Peter Sandstone to the north in northern Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, where the unit is shallower and contains fresh water (Burkart and Buchmiller, 1990; Mandle and Kontis, 1992; Young, 1992a, b). Although these hydrogeologic studies provide some useful information about aquifer parameters, they do not include the central Illinois Basin region.

References

Barnes, D. A., Lundgren, C. E., and Longman, M. W., 1992, Sedimentology and diagenesis of the St. Peter Sandstone, central Michigan Basin, United States: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 76, p. 1507–1532.

Bell, A. H., and Kline, V., 1952, Oil and gas development in Illinois during 1951: Illinois Geological Survey, Illinois Petroleum 67, 53 p.

Bergstrom, R. E., 1968, Feasibility of subsurface disposal of industrial wastes in Illinois: Illinois Geological Survey, Circular C 26, 18 p.

Burkart, M. R., and Buchmiller, R. C., 1990, Regional evaluation of hydrologic factors and effects of pumping, St. Peter-Jordan Aquifer, Iowa: U.S. Geological Survey, Water-Resources Investigations Report 90-4009, 44 p.

Cartwright, K., Gilkeson, R. H., Griffin, R. A., Johnson, T. M., Lindorff, D. E., and DuMontelle, P. B., 1981, Considerations in hazardous waste disposal in Illinois: Illinois Geological Survey, Geological Note GN 94, 20 p.

Collinson, C., Sargent, M. L., and Jennings, J. R., 1988, Chapter 14: Illinois Basin region, in Sloss, L. L., ed., The Geology of North America, v. D-2, Sedimentary Cover—North American Craton: U.S.: Decade of North American Geology: Geological Society of America, p. 383–426.

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Davis, H. G., 1990, Pre-Mississippian hydrocarbon potential of the Illinois Basin, in Leighton, M. W., Kolata, D. R., Oltz, D. F., and Eidel, J. J., eds., Interior cratonic basins: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir 51, p. 473–489.

Hoholick, D. J., 1980, Porosity, grain fabric, water chemistry, cement, and depth of the St. Peter Sandstone in the Illinois Basin: University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis, 72 p.

Hoholick, J. D., Metarko, T., and Potter, P. E., 1984, Regional variations of porosity and cement: St. Peter and Mount Simon Sandstones in Illinois Basin: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 68, p. 753–764.

Kinney, D. M., ed., 1976, Geothermal gradient map of North America: American Association of Petroleum Geologists and U.S. Geological Survey Publication G74014, 2 maps.

Kolata, D. R., and Noger, M. C., 1990, Tippecanoe I sequence Middle and Upper Ordovician Series, in Leighton, M. W., Kolata, D. R., Oltz, D. F., and Eidel, J. J., eds., Interior cratonic basins: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir 51, p. 89–99.

Kreutzfeld, J. E., 1982, Pore geometry and permeability of the St. Peter Sandstone in the Illinois Basin: University of Toledo, Master's thesis, 353 p.

Lamar, J. E., 1928, Geology and economic resources of the St. Peter Sandstone of Illinois: Illinois Geological Survey Bulletin No. 53, 175 p.

Lloyd, O. B., and Lyke, W. L., 1995, Ground water atlas of the United States—segment 10, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee: U.S. Geological Survey, Hydrologic Investigations Atlas No. HA-730-K, 30 p.

Mandle, R. J., and Kontis, A. L., 1992, Simulation of regional ground-water flow in the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer system in the northern Midwest, United States: U.S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper 1405-C.

Meents, W. F., Bell, A. H., Rees, O. W., and Tilbury, W. G., 1952, Illinois oil-field brines, their geologic occurrence and chemical composition: Illinois Geological Survey, Illinois Petroleum No. 66, 38 p.

National Imagery and Mapping Agency, 2000, Digital terrain elevation data (DTED Level 0)

Odom, I. E., Doe, T. W., and Dott, R. H., Jr., 1976, Nature of feldspar-grain size relations in some quartz-rich sandstones: Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, v. 46, p. 862–870.

Odom, I. E., Willand, T. M., and Lassin, R. J., 1977, Paragenesis of authigenic minerals in St. Peter Sandstone: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 61, p. 1384–1385.

Roy, W. R., Mravik, S. C., Krapac, I. G., Dickerson, D. R., and Griffin., R. A., 1988, Geochemical interactions of hazardous wastes with geological formations in deep-well systems: Illinois Geological Survey, Environmental Geology Note EGN130, 52 p.

Selkregg, L. F., Pryor, W. A., and Kempton, J. P., 1957, Groundwater geology in south-central Illinois—a preliminary geologic report: Illinois Geologic Survey, Circular 225, 30 p.

Thiel, G. A., 1935, Sedimentary and petrographic analysis of the St. Peter Sandstone: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 46, p. 559–614.

Willman, H. B., Atherton, E., Buschbach, T. C., Collinson, C., Frye, J. C., Hopkins, M. E., Lineback, J. A., and Simon, J. A., 1975, Handbook of Illinois stratigraphy: Illinois State Geological Survey, Bulletin 95, 261 p.

Young, H. L., 1992a, Summary of ground water hydrology of the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer system in the northern Midwest, United States: U.S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper 1405-A, 55 p.

___________ 1992b, Hydrogeology of the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer system in the northern Midwest, United States: U.S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper 1405-B, 99 p.

Zuppemann, C. W., and Keith, B. D., eds., 1988, Geology and petroleum production of the Illinois Basin, v. 2: Mt. Vernon, IL, Illinois and Indiana. Kentucky Geological Societies, joint publication, 272 p.

Prepared by Andrew Warne.