Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1887 — Trenton Rock and Gas [ARTICLE]

Trenton Rock and Gas

South Bend Tribune. ‘ „ k’Z3 Trenton rock, or more properly Trenton limestone, is the name of a geological formation that was first noted in Oneida county, N. Y., r.ime fifty yer.rs ago, wlieie, In il.u d< yjp g l,: ’go cf a water-eourse,-li.rH**teta- watts er>ntaining wc!l-pr<.gei vvd fos'siis, characters; tie of the divis'on ■gcclpgical time known as-the tower f-iniriau Age, were found. 'The rocks of this period had received no loml nanie in ?»orth. America, so they were chri .dened Ticnton limestone. Trenton limestone, which has acquired such fresh and might}* impor tance of late, is a dark blue, almost black, rock, lying hJ massive, evert beds, which arc sometimes separated by layers of thick shale; Th° limestone has a thickness’ of about 150 feet. It is covered by a stratu m of 300 feet of thin bedded, dark shale, which is sometimes mistaken for coal. The shale is called the Utica slate or shale.

Trenton limestone was the first great limestone formation on the continent, and was much wider than any that succeeded it. It is found all over most parts of eastern North America. The oil and gas deposits in the Tren ton limestone doubtless owe their origin to animal and vegetable matter that was deposited in the limestone when it was forming, and the proba bility is that most of the matter so in cprporatod was animal in its nature; because the limestones were built up by moans of animal agencies, and there must be organic matter in them. But organic matter lias to take some permanent form, and when it has reached a stable condition the--Hight of agesdoes not, of necessity, alter or disturb it. ■ -

In all;the good wells that have been struck, with perhaps a single e.vcertion, the surface of the Trenton limestones ranges between three and four hundred feet below tide. . The statements of the drillers prove that not a single well in Northwestern Ohio is producing oil from Trenton limestone whe’re it lies more than 500 feet below the level of the sea. and not a single- well is emitting gas in quantities exceeding one hundred thousand cubic feet daily where the top -tis the Trenton rock Iles more than four hundred.fect below tide water. All of the gas wells oi Ohio combined that get their gas from a lower level l?.?s in . volume and pressure, and in the aggregate do not yie'd more than' two htiiidieii thousand— cubic feet of gar