Standish, MI (Oil Well) (1941) Contributed by Paul Petosky

In Arenac county, there are a number of wells penetrating rock, but they are shallow excepting a 1900 foot well drilled by James Norn at Standish of which no log was kept but it appears to have reached the Berca (Sunbury) black shale just above the Berea grit. Below the Marshall, blue shales of the Coldwater which yielded a little brine, predominated.

The record given below has been largely compiled from notes and statements of persons connected with the drilling of the well, and may be taken as fairly representative of the general character and thickness of the formations penetrated.

That part of the Upper Peninsula west of a line drawn from Marquette to Menominee is mainly underlain by pro-Cambrian rocks. Palaeozoic rocks from the Cambrian up to and including the Silurian occupy all of the area to tho east of this tine.

The Niagara limestone extends in an accurate belt along the western shore of Lake Michigan through Green Bay peninsula and along the northern shores of Lakes Michigan and Huron from Garden Peninsula to Drummond Island and into Cockburn and Manitoulin Islands, Ontario. The St. Ignace Peninsula, however, is composed of Monroe beds.

The Niagara in the Upper Peninsula is a massive limestone and dolomite formation with an average thickness of about 600 feet. The prevailing dip is lakeward from 10 to 60 feet per mile and this gives rise to low rocky shores with few deep harbors. Toward the interior the rock surface rises to considerable! heights and the outer margin of the formation is marked by a prominent line of landward facing bluffs 100 to 200 feet high. The elevation of the interior and the lakeward dip of the rocks give rise to general artesian conditions along the lake shore. As a consequence much drilling for water has been done at several points but as water from limestones is nearly always very hard, some relatively deep drillings have been made in search of softer waters. These drillings, together with observations afforded by extensive outcrops, indicate that the Niagara contains very little bituminous matter d that in the Upper Peninsula it gives little promise of yielding oil and gas.

The Clinton, Rochester and Medina are doubtfully recognized in outcrops or in borings and can not be distinguished from each other. The Lorraine and the Utica are well represented and are easily recognized in drill holes. These shaly formations, being very soft, occur in a belt of depressions on the north side of the Niagara escarpment and outcrop in but few places. The Utica shale is exposed in the bods of streams on the east side of Whitefish river.

The Trenton limestone forms the western shore of Green Bay and Little Bay de Noc, turns eastward in Delta county, describing an are through the Northern Peninsula, and crosses St. Mary's river at St. Joseph Island into Ontario. Nowhere in the Northern Peninsula is the Trenton very deep, yet it offers certain oil and gas possibilities, for, aside from its bituminous and petroliferous character, it has a suitable cap rock, being overlain in most of the Peninsula by the impervious shales of the Utica and Lorraine.

The Trenton outcrops over a very large area and in general is under a very thin cover of drift in the vicinity of Rapid and Whitefish rivers. Wherever exposed, it shows signs of the former presence of oil and gas. The rock is bituminous and petroliferous and very frequently the cracks and fissures are found to contain dried oil residue or asphaltum "gum."

Comparatively little exploration has been done in the Upper Peninsula except for water. Thus far wells have been sunk at Marinette (Wisconsin), Menominee, Rapid River, Escanaba, Gladstone and Flat Rock, near Stonington, at Pickford, Necbish Island, and St. Ignace.