Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-13-2022
Publication Title
The Sedimentary Record
Abstract
The Wabash #1 well, drilled for the Wabash CarbonSAFE Project and located in Vigo County, Indiana, USA, was drilled in early 2020 as a stratigraphic test well to characterize and evaluate the basal Cambrian Mt. Simon Sandstone for carbon dioxide storage (TD=8750 ft; 2667 m). The Wabash #1 well is located along the eastern flank of a newly interpreted Cambrian aulacogen that occurs in western Indiana and eastern Illinois. Here we present 938 new detrital zircon U-Pb ages (LA-ICPMS) from early Cambrian sandstones sampled near the base of the well. A basalt lava flow was penetrated at ~8530 ft (2600 m) and has an 40Ar/39Ar age of 525.03 +/- 1.10 Ma, which represents the first known Cambrian crust in the Illinois Basin. The two sandstone samples from beneath the basalt are dominated by zircons derived from the Midcontinent Granite-Rhyolite terrane. The sandstone samples from above the basalt reflect a mixture of these locally derived Mazatzal and Granite-Rhyolite terrane zircons, but also distal Archean, Grenville, and Yavapai zircons. Each sample has small numbers of Cambrian zircons, which is consistent with those in basal Cambrian sandstones in other deep wells to the west. These early Cambrian detrital zircons and early Cambrian age of the basalt, combined with sediment thickness patterns permit the interpretation of the Illinois aulacogen, which formed during the final stage of Rodinian rifting.
Funding Source
This research was funded by US Department of Energy Wabash CarbonSAFE Project (DE-FE-0031626).
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2110/001c.37650
Recommended Citation
Freiburg, J. T., Malone, D., & Huisman, M. (2022). Geochronology of Cambrian Sedimentary and Volcanic Rocks in the Illinois Basin: Defining the Illinois Aulacogen. The Sedimentary Record, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.2110/001c.37650
supplemental data
wabash_ar_ar_basalt_data_table.xls (438 kB)
supplemental data
Methodology.docx (19 kB)
methodology
Comments
This article was originally published in The Sedimentary Record, vol. 20, issue 1, 2022; https://doi.org/10.2110/001c.37650.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CCBY-4.0). View this license’s legal deed at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 and legal code at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode for more information.