Ordovician Point Pleasant/Utica-Lower Paleozoic Total Petroleum System—Revisions to the Utica-Lower Paleozoic Total Petroleum System in the Appalachian Basin Province
Hydrocarbon reserves and technically recoverable undiscovered resources in continuous accumulations are present in Upper Ordovician strata in the Appalachian Basin Province. The province includes parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. The Upper Ordovician strata are part of the previously defined Utica-Lower Paleozoic Total Petroleum System (TPS) that extends from New York and southern Canada to Tennessee. This publication presents a revision to the hydrocarbon source rocks in the TPS, a change to the name of the TPS, and changes to the geographic extent of the Utica-Lower Paleozoic TPS. The revision to the TPS recognizes the Upper Ordovician Point Pleasant Formation as a major hydrocarbon source rock in this TPS. Consequently, the name of the TPS is changed to Ordovician Point Pleasant/Utica-Lower Paleozoic TPS. The most significant modification to the boundary of the newly defined Ordovician Point Pleasant/Utica-Lower Paleozoic TPS is a westward extension in the southwesterly portion of the TPS, adding areas in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee in order to include Ordovician strata, including potential petroleum source rocks, from the subsurface to their near-surface exposure. Also, portions of the former Utica-Lower Paleozoic TPS are now excluded from the newly defined TPS in a portion of northwestern Ohio and adjacent States to eliminate overlap with the Ordovician to Devonian Composite TPS in the Michigan basin.