Evidence for an Early Delta of the Detroit River in Western Lake Erie

Abstract

Test borings in the western basin of Lake Erie have revealed an extensive sub-bottom deposit of sand in a triangular region bounded by Stony Point on the mainland shore of Michigan, Middle Sister Island in Ontario, and West Sister Island in Ohio. The 550 km2 deposit is overlain by up to 7 m of more recent lacustrine silts and clays. The sand beds have an average thickness of 2.3 m, yielding a total volume of approximately 1.3 X 109 m3 of sand. A preliminary interpretation is that when the ancestral Detroit River first flowed into Early Lake Erie about 4-5,000 years B. P. deltaic sediments were deposited in the northern portion of the western basin. The material of these beds is primarily a clean, medium- to fine-grained, moderately well-sorted sand that appears to have commercial extraction quality.