Berea Sandstone, also known as Berea Grit, is a sandstone formation in the U.S. states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. It is named after Berea, Ohio. The sandstone has been used as a building stone and is a source of oil and gas.
In the Appalachian Basin, Berea Sandstone is present in eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, western West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky.[2] In the Michigan Basin, the sandstone is present in the eastern part of the state, thickest near Michigan's Thumb.[3][4] The two deposits are separated by the Cincinnati Arch and are disconnected from each other.[3] The sandstone overlies the Bedford Shale and the Ohio Shale and underlies the Sunbury Shale.[2] Berea Sandstone is light gray to buff-colored in the form of siltstone and fine- to medium-grained sandstone. In places it is hard to distinguish from the underlying Bedford Shale.[5] Berea Sandstone is classified as a member of the Waverly Group.[6] Berea Sandstone is up to 72 meters (236 ft) thick in Lorain County, Ohio,[7] and up to 79 meters (259 ft) thick in Huron County, Michigan.[4]
The sandstone was named "Berea Grit" by Ohio geologist J. S. Newberry in 1874. He named it after Berea, Ohio, for its extensive quarries of the stone.[8]
In Michigan, the petroleum industry has referred to the Ellsworth Shale as "Berea", but this formation is distinct from Berea Sandstone and is laterally separated by Antrim Shale.[9]
Berea Sandstone was formed in the Late Devonian period.[10][11] Prior to the 1970s, it was assigned a Mississippian age.[10] The Devonian-Carboniferous boundary was realigned based on research from Europe, but various geologists were not aware of the changes and so incorrectly assigned Berea Sandstone to the Kinderhookian (early Mississippian).[10][12]
The majority of the sand which formed the Berea Sandstone came from the north, flowing in a river from the highlands of eastern Canada.[13][14] It was deposited in a river delta environment.[15] Pepper, et al., hypothesized that the river flowed first into the Ohio basin before switching course to the Michigan basin, thus the Michigan Berea Sandstone would be slightly younger.[14] There is a downwarp in the Cincinnati arch, called the Ontario sag, that if it was present at the formation of Berea Sandstone, could mean that it formed a continuous belt of sediment between the Appalachian and Michigan basins. Nevertheless, subsequent erosion disconnected the two deposits.[3]
Berea Sandstone is generally unfossiliferous.[16][17] However some fossils have been found, including fish of the genera Ctenacanthus and Gonatodus, plants of the genus Annularia, and some brachiopods.[18]
Buildings constructed of Berea Sandstone include the Johnson County Courthouse in Iowa[19] and the Brown County Courthouse in South Dakota.[20] The Centre Block building of the Parliament of Canada, both before and after reconstruction, uses Berea Sandstone as window and door trim.[21]
Berea Sandstone has also been used as flagstone and for paving. Fine grained stone has been used for grindstones and whetstones.[22]
Quarrying of Berea Sandstone began in 1830. Until around 1840 or 1845, only grindstones were produced before diversifying into building and flagstones. More than a dozen different companies quarried the sandstone, before all consolidating into the Cleveland Stone Company by 1893, which was the largest sandstone producer in the United States at the time.[23]
Berea Sandstone is a host of oil and natural gas. Commercial gas development began in 1859–60 with a well at East Liverpool, Ohio. Oil was discovered in the Berea Sandstone in 1860 in Mecca Township, Trumbull County, Ohio.[24] In Michigan, Berea Sandstone oil was first discovered in 1925 at Saginaw; this field accounted for the entirety of Michigan's oil production until 1927.[25] By 2011, oil production from Berea Sandstone led northeastern Kentucky to be the most productive region of that state.[26]
Media related to Berea Sandstone at Wikimedia Commons
