A northeast-trending graben was hypothesized to extend southwest of Saginaw Bay to the Mid-Michigan Gravity High, based on interpretation of Landsat 1 imagery, stream drainage maps, and sparse well-log data. The edges of the graben were thought t o extend along and southwest of the Pinconning oil field on the northwest side, and the Quanicassee River on the southeast side. Subsequent analysis of digital terrain, magnetic, gravity, seismic, and well-log data showed that no unequivocal evidence for a discrete, simple graben within the originally defined limits could be found. However, the new data indicated that the proposed edges of the “graben” correspond to structural lineaments (monoclines and anticlines) expressed within the Paleozoic section and on the bedrock surface. These structural features correlate with basement contacts and/or fault zones inferred from interpretation of magnetic and gravity images. These possibly basement-controlled structural lineaments influenced depositional patterns intermittently during the Paleozoic, as evidenced by the presence of northeast-trending highs within the limits of the “graben” on isopach maps of Pennsylvanian, Mississippian, and Devonian stratigraphic units. Rapid thinning and facies changes in Middle and Lower Ordovician units across the southeastern edge of the “graben,” coupled with its correlation with northeast-trending positive gravity and magnetic anomalies, suggest that this is a significant structural feature, possibly controlled or influenced by the Grenville Front.

ABSTRACT This thesis embraces and expands upon a century of research into disparate geological enigmas, offering a unifying catastrophic explanation for events occurring during the enigmatic mid-Pleistocene transition. Billions of tons of “Australasian tektites” were dispatched as distal ejecta from a target mass of continental sediments during a cosmic impact occurring ca. 788 ka. The accepted signatures of a hypervelocity impact encompass an excavated astrobleme and attendant proximal, medial, and distal ejecta distributions. Enigmatically, the distal tektites remain the only accepted evidence of this impact’s reality. A protracted 50 yr search fixated on impact sites in Southeast Asia—the location of the tektites—has failed to identify the requisite additional impact signatures. We postulate the missing astrobleme and proximal/medial ejecta signatures are instead located antipodal to Southeast Asia. A review of the gradualistic theories for the genesis and age of the “Carolina bay” landforms of North America finds those models incapable of addressing all the facts we observe. Research into 57,000 of those oriented basins informs our speculation that they represent cavitation-derived ovoid basins within energetically delivered geophysical mass surge flows emanating from a cosmic impact. Those flows are seen as repaving regions of North America under blankets of hydrated impact regolith. Our precisely measured Carolina bay orientations indicate an impact site within the Laurentide ice sheet. There, we invoke a grazing regime impact into hydrated early Mesozoic to late Paleozoic continental sediments, similar in composition to the expected Australasian tektites’ parent target. We observe that continental ice shielded the target at ca. 788 ka, a scenario understood to produce anomalous astroblemes. The ensuing excavation allowed the Saginaw glacial lobe’s distinctive and unique passage through the Marshall Sandstone cuesta, which encircles and elsewhere protects the central region of the intracratonic Michigan Basin. Subsequent erosion by multiple ice-age transgressions has obfuscated impact evidence, forming Michigan’s “Thumb” as an enduring event signature. Comprehensive suborbital modeling supports the distribution of distal ejecta to the Australasian tektite strewn field from Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The mid-Pleistocene transition impact hypothesis unifies the Carolina bays with those tektites as products of an impact into the Saginaw Bay area of Lake Huron, USA. The hypothesis will be falsified if cosmogenic nuclide burial dating of Carolina bay subjacent stratigraphic contacts disallows a coeval regolith emplacement ca. 788 ka across North America. We offer observations, interdisciplinary insights, and informed speculations fitting for an embryonic concept involving a planetary-scale extraterrestrial impact.

ABSTRACT Recent mapping in southwestern Michigan conducted through U.S. Geological Survey STATEMAP, EDMAP, and Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalition projects has produced new interpretations of the origin of the landforms and sediments of the Lake Michigan and Saginaw lobes of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and the dynamics of these lobes. The Lake Michigan lobe advanced southeastward into a proglacial lake at least as far east as the Kalamazoo moraine. During its advance, the lobe extensively deformed the lacustrine sediments it overrode. These structures will be discussed in several pits. When ice backed away from the Kalamazoo moraine, it formed a series of proglacial lakes, several of which were described for the first time in the studies upon which this guidebook is based. As the ice retreated, lowland areas between morainal uplands were utilized by meltwater drainage events, some of them probably catastrophic in nature. The Saginaw lobe stagnated over a broad marginal area as it retreated northeastward toward Saginaw Bay. The resulting stagnant marginal zone is coincident with the subcrop of the Marshall Sandstone. Enhanced basal drainage into the underlying sandstone may have played a role in the dynamics of the lobe. High-relief, supraglacial landforms such as hummocky topography and ice-walled lake plains overprint subglacial landforms in this region, which include large tunnel valleys with inset eskers. Better understanding of the glacial geology of this region is critical to economic development, management of water resources, and exploration for aggregates and other resources.

ABSTRACT We studied the following proven as well as hypothetical impact craters (among others), and some of the relevant results are reviewed in this chapter: (1) a hypothetical impact structure in Saginaw Bay, Great Lakes, Michigan; (2) a putative impact crater basin under the ice of Antarctica in Wilkes Land; (3) two recently discovered subglacial impact craters in Greenland; (4) a possible huge impact crater in Kotuykanskaya in a remote area of Siberia near the proven impact crater Popigai; and (5) a hypothetical impact object Burckle on the bottom of the Indian Ocean. They were tested using the gravity data derived from the recent gravity field model EIGEN 6C4 (with ground resolution of ~9 km). Our method is novel; we introduce gravity aspects (descriptors) to augment traditional gravity anomalies. The following gravity aspects were used: (a) gravity disturbances/anomalies, (b) second derivatives of the disturbing potential (the Marussi tensor), (c) two of three gravity invariants, (d) their specific ratio (known as 2D factor), (e) strike angles, and (f) virtual deformations. These gravity aspects are sensitive in various ways to the underground density contrasts. They describe the underground structures (not only the craters) more carefully and in more detail than the traditional gravity anomalies could do alone. Our results support geological evidence of the impact craters found by others in many cases or suggest new impact places for further study.

Abstract In this chapter we examine pressures in the St. Peter Sandstone and associated formations of the deep Michigan basin. A comparison of computed brine heads to surface elevations reveals a large area of overpressures withinthe St. Peter Sandstone and the Glenwood Formation to the west and north of Saginaw Bay. Contrary to the patterns expected for a steady-state, topographically driven flow system, heads in these formations are highest in theregional discharge area. Vertical gradients between the Glenwood and the St. Peter and between the St. Peter and the Prairie du Chien Group would generate downward flow in the regional discharge area, which is also inconsistent with a steady-state flow system. Low-permeability zones must exist within the Glenwood and St. Peter to inhibit equilibration with normal pressures in the underlying and overlying units. Overpressures appear to be dissipating by both upward and downward leakage through high-permeability zones located in anticlinal structures and possibly related to basement faults. Within the larger area of anomalous pressures, repeat formation test data from selected wells reveal even greater overpressures locally within the St. Peter. These vertical variations in pressures are associated with vertical variations in permeability, suggesting a stacked system of compartments separated by low-permeability zones of diagenetic origin.

Abstract Kinetic models for apatite fission-track annealing and vitrinite maturation were used to examine hypotheses for the burial and thermal history of the Michigan basin. Fission-track ages between 160 and 200 Ma were measured for Carboniferous outcrop samples (>300 Ma) near Saginaw Bay. Published vitrinite reflectance and conodont alteration data from the Michigan basin are higher than predicted from current depths and temperatures for the samples. Both sets of data are broadly consistent with elevated temperatures due to additional burial at present geothermal gradients. The depth of additional burial varies systematically from less than 1 km in the basin center to more than 2 km near the adjacent arches. The additional burial could explain the occurrence of diagenetic banding in portions of the St. Peter Sandstone that are currently at depths shallower than the critical window for this phenomenon.