GROUND WATER IN NORTH-CENTRAL TENNESSEE

STRATIGRAPHY 6f
Diameter of well, at top, 10 inches; at bottom, 8 inches; depth in October, 1927,
1,930 feet, with drilling in progress. Log based upon examination of cuttings
sampled by Franklin Oil & Fuel Co. at each multiple of 10 feet from a depth of
40 to 1,930 feet. Casing head about 15 feet below top of Murfreesboro limestone.
ST. PETER (?) SANDSTONE
Several deep wells in southern Kentucky reach, a somewhat variable
sandstone or sandy limestone stratum which has been correlated by
Munn 25 and by Shaw and Mather 26 with the St. Peter sandstone of
the upper Mississippi Valley. This stratum is in the lower part of
the Ordovician system of that area and is from 1,470 to 1,600 feet
below the Chattanooga shale. Butts,27 on the other hand, presents
data which suggest that the supposed St. Peter sandstone penetrated
by wells in western Kentucky and southern Indiana is not a single
stratum but rather comprises several sandy layers at different hori­
zons in a mass of sandy limestone and dolomite. No one of these
layers can be correlated certainly with the typical St. Peter sandstone.
In north-central Tennessee sandy strata are penetrated by several
deep wells in the vicinity of Nashville and by the Franklin Oil & Fuel
Go's, test well near Murfreesboro. The character and stratigraphic
relations of the strata at Nashville are shown by the preceding log of
the test well on the Arthur Stevens property at Bordeaux, in which
beds of sandstone, sandy limestone, and calcareous sandstone were
penetrated from 1,043 to 1,210 feet below the surface. The top of
this group of beds is about 1,500 feet stratigraphically below the
Chattanooga shale. In the well near Murfreesboro the sandy stratum
is only about 10 feet thick, and its top is about 610 feet below the
surface, or 1,400 feet below the Chattanooga shale. The sandy beds
penetrated by the wells near Nashville seem to constitute a single
stratum at approximately the same geologic horizon as the supposed
St. Peter sandstone of Wayne County, Ky. The sandy bed in the
well near Murfreesboro is also at about the same horizon, though
it can not be inferred that this bed is a southward extension of the
stratum penetrated at Nashville. If these sandy beds penetrated in
Kentucky, at Nashville, and near Murfreesboro constitute a single
stratum, it thins notably toward the southeast.
The St. Peter sandstone of the upper Mississippi Valley is a persist­
ent water-bearing stratum, so that, if present in central Tennessee
and if its water-bearing properties remain unchanged, it constitutes
a potential deep source of water in this region. Its promise as a
source of ground water is discussed in the descriptions of Davidson
and Rutherford Counties (pp. 134, 179).
15 Munn, M. J., Reconnaissance of oil and gas fields in Wayne and McCreary counties, Ky.: 17. S. Geol.,
Survey Bull. 679, p. 17,1914.
» Shaw, E. W., and Mather, K. F., The oil fields of Alien County, Ky.: U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 688,
p. 39,1919.
" Butts, Charles, Geology and mineral resources of Jefferson County, Ky.: Kentucky Geol. Survey, ser.
4, vol. 3, pt. 2, pp. 33-36, 1916.