Geology of New Jersey

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Physiographic Provinces of New Jersey New Jersey Physiography.png
Physiographic Provinces of New Jersey

New Jersey is a very geologically and geographically diverse region in the United States' Middle Atlantic region, offering variety from the Appalachian Mountains and the Highlands in the state's northwest, to the Atlantic Coastal Plain region that encompasses both the Pine Barrens and the Jersey Shore. The state's geological features have impacted the course of settlement, development, commerce and industry over the past four centuries.

Contents

New Jersey has four distinct physiographic provinces. They are: (listed from the south to the north) the Atlantic Coastal Plain Province, the Piedmont Province, the Highlands Province, and the Ridge and Valley Province.

Coastal Plain

View north from the fire tower on Apple Pie Hill in Wharton State Forest, Tabernacle Township, New Jersey 2014-08-29 12 01 24 View north from the fire tower on Apple Pie Hill in Wharton State Forest, Tabernacle Township, New Jersey.JPG
View north from the fire tower on Apple Pie Hill in Wharton State Forest, Tabernacle Township, New Jersey

The largest province in the state encompasses the southeast part of the state below the fall zone from Trenton to Carteret. It contains a large wedge of unconsolidated sediments that have been deposited since the Cretaceous Period. These sediments continue off-shore as far as the continental shelf edge in the Atlantic Ocean. Topography is relatively flat with a few hills of erosion resistant sediments containing gravel or iron-sedimented sands. [1] The province is divided further into three subprovinces. One is the Lowland section, which comprises flat, frequently inundated areas of tidal marshes, back bays, and barrier islands. This section generally follows the coastline, Delaware Bay, and Delaware River. The intermediate upland section comprises raised areas inland and is best suited for farming and other agriculture. The sands of the coastal plain have been mined for foundry sand and sand used for glass making. Finally, the upland section is home to the New Jersey Pine Barrens and Fort Dix. Glauconite is commonly found in this section, especially around Freehold Township, New Jersey. [2]

Piedmont

A majority of the rocks in this province are a part of the Newark Supergroup. They include the Passaic Formation, the Lockatong Formation, the Stockton Formation, and the igneous rocks basalt and diabase. In New Jersey, more basalt flows are evident with several named formations including the Hook Mountain Basalt, the Preakness Basalt, and the Orange Mountain Basalt. Diabase is prominently displayed along the Hudson River in the Palisades Sill. These rocks were deposited during the rifting of Pangea during the Triassic and Jurassic Periods. Much of the northern segment of this region was glaciated and the resultant shaping help to form New York and Newark harbors.

A small portion of the Pennsylvania Piedmont Highlands called the Trenton Prong extends into New Jersey through Trenton and are mostly Ediacaran and Cambrian aged rocks, that includes the Wissahickon Formation. The Manhattan schist exists in New Jersey, largely below New York harbor and in the vicinity of Bayonne and Jersey City. [2]

Highlands

The Highland Province consists of the remnants of a billion year old mountain range that stretched from Newfoundland to Mexico on the edge of the North American continent and was created in the Grenville Orogeny.

To the east of the Kittatinny Valley is the Highland province. A narrow fault of Hardyston Quartzite separates the Kittatinny Valley from the Highlands. Igneous and metamorphic rock from the Late Precambrian and Early Paleozoic era, make up the Highlands. Kittatinny and Franklin formation, along with Hardyston Quartzite are in the Highlands. The New Jersey Highlands geology is complicated due to complex patterns of folds, faults and intrusions.

The Highland Province has the Wawayanda Mountains which has an elevation of 1448 at two peaks; Sparta Mountain, elevation 1232: Pochuck Mountain, elevation 1194, north of Lake Pochung; Hamburg Mountain, elevation 1495 east of Lake Wildwood.

This section contains some the oldest rocks in New Jersey and is largely a mix of Pre-Cambrian granites and gneisses and lower Paleozoic clastic and carbonate rocks. [2] The harder granites and gneisses produce steep sided hills and mountains since they are relatively resistant to erosion. There are two small klippes in the southern part of this province, the Jutland klippe south of Musconetcong Mountain and the Peapack klippe in southern Morris County.

There are numerous active and abandoned mines in this area because of its rich mineral wealth. Iron, zinc, and marble were all important minerals mined from the New Jersey Highlands. Franklinite is a mineral first described at Sterling Hill Mine.

Green Pond Mountain in Northern Passaic County and into western Morris County is a slice of Lower Cambrian to Middle Devonian rocks that are collected in a half graben and are detached from the Valley and Ridge sequence. These rocks have always been described separately from the rocks in the Valley and Ridge, but have been cross-correlated to those rocks.

Ridge and Valley

Looking east from the ridge of Kittatinny Mountain in Walpack Township East from Kittatinny Mountain DWGNRA Walpack Twsp NJ.jpg
Looking east from the ridge of Kittatinny Mountain in Walpack Township

The smallest province in the state, it is confined to the northwest corner of the state. The Kittatinny Valley is a part of the Great Appalachian Valley and contain some of the oldest rocks of the province known as the Matinsburg shale created during the Ordovician period. At the edge of this valley is the Kittatinny Ridge which is from 1500 feet to 1800 feet. The ridge goes in a northeast–southwest axis. Beyond this ridge, there are series of rolling hills and small ridges underlain by Silurian and Devonian aged rocks.

The Kittatinny Ridge was created about four hundred million years ago when a small continent that was long and thin collided with proto North America. The strike caused folding and faulting which cause the Silurian Shawnagunk conglomerate which is made mostly of quartz, to rise out of a shallow sea. The heat from pressure caused the quartz to bend, and silica melted the quartz granules together along with other stone. Millions of years of erosion from rain, wind, snow, ice shaped the mountain and valley to its present configuration. The Wisconsin glacier which started to form around 21,000 BC and started to melt in 13,000 BC left boulder fields, end moraines and a terminal moraine which starts north of Belvidere and goes east to just south of Great Meadow and continues east to just north of Budd Lake and continues east to Denville where it goes southeast toward Morristown and goes around the south end of Great Swamp.

The Delaware River is deflected by ridges and travels generally southwest, along the strike of the upturned beds of shale sedimentary rock. The Delaware flows in a riverbed of glacial till in the Minisink and Walpack buried valleys, formed from erosion of softer bedrock, then passes through the Delaware Water Gap in Kittatinny Mountain, [3] a continuation of Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania. The buried valleys extend beyond the riverbed and stretch across the state from Pennsylvania to New York. [4] The limestones in this area also exhibit karst topography, including sinkholes and small caves. [3]

Geologic Features

View of the Delaware Water Gap in Warren County, seen from the west View of the Delaware Water Gap SE Dunfield.jpg
View of the Delaware Water Gap in Warren County, seen from the west

Notable Rock Formations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Watchung Mountains</span> Group of three long low ridges in northern New Jersey

The Watchung Mountains are a group of three long low ridges of volcanic origin, between 400 and 500 feet high, lying parallel to each other in northern New Jersey in the United States. The name is derived from the American Native Lenape name for them, Wach Unks. In the 18th century, the Euro-American settlers also called them the Blue Mountains or Blue Hills. The Watchung Mountains are known for their numerous scenic vistas overlooking the skylines of New York City and Newark, New Jersey, as well as their isolated ecosystems containing rare plants, endangered wildlife, rich minerals, and globally imperiled trap rock glade communities. The ridges traditionally contained the westward spread of urbanization, forming a significant geologic barrier beyond the piedmont west of the Hudson River; the town of Newark, for example, once included lands from the Hudson to the base of the mountains. Later treaties moved the boundary to the top of the mountain, to include the springs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kittatinny Mountain</span> Ridge in northwestern New Jersey

Kittatinny Mountain is a long ridge traversing primarily across Sussex County in northwestern New Jersey, running in a northeast-southwest axis, a continuation across the Delaware Water Gap of Pennsylvania's Blue Mountain. It is the first major ridge in the far northeastern extension of the Ridge and Valley province of the Appalachian Mountains, and reaches its highest elevation, 1,803 feet, at High Point in Montague Township. Kittatinny Mountain forms the eastern side of Wallpack Valley; the western side comprises the Wallpack Ridge (highest elevation: 928 feet above sea level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geography of New Jersey</span>

New Jersey is a state within the United States of America that lies on the north eastern edge of the North American continent. It shares a land border with the state of New York along the north, ratified by both states after the New York – New Jersey Line War, which is its only straight line border.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stokes State Forest</span>

Stokes State Forest is a state park located in Sandyston, Montague and Frankford in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. Stokes comprises 16,447 acres (66.56 km2) of mountainous woods in the Kittatinny Mountains, extending from the southern boundary of High Point State Park southwestward to the eastern boundary of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The park is operated and maintained by the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry.

The Newark Supergroup, also known as the Newark Group, is an assemblage of Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic sedimentary and volcanic rocks which outcrop intermittently along the east coast of North America. They were deposited in a series of Triassic basins, the Eastern North American rift basins, approximately 220–190 million years ago. The basins are characterized as aborted rifts, with half-graben geometry, developing parallel to the main rift of the Atlantic Ocean which formed as North America began to separate from Africa. Exposures of the Newark Supergroup extend from South Carolina north to Nova Scotia. Related basins are also found underwater in the Bay of Fundy. The group is named for the city of Newark, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of Pennsylvania</span>

The Geology of Pennsylvania consists of six distinct physiographic provinces, three of which are subdivided into different sections. Each province has its own economic advantages and geologic hazards and plays an important role in shaping everyday life in the state. From the southeast corner to the northwest corner of the state, they include: the Atlantic Plain Province, the Piedmont Province, the New England Province, the Ridge and Valley Province, the Appalachain Province, and the Central Lowlands Province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martinsburg Formation</span> Geologic formation in the eastern United States

The Ordovician Martinsburg Formation (Om) is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. It is named for the town of Martinsburg, West Virginia for which it was first described. It is the dominant rock formation of the Great Appalachian Valley in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Passaic Formation</span>

The Passaic Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. It was previously known as the Brunswick Formation since it was first described in the vicinity of New Brunswick, New Jersey. It is now named for the city of Passaic, New Jersey, which is near where its type section was described by paleontologist Paul E. Olsen.

The Ordovician Kittatinny Formation or Kittatinny Limestone is a dolomitic limestone formation in New Jersey. The Kittatinny Limestones are located primarily in the Kittatinny Valley where it lies above the Ordovician Martinsburg Formation within the long valley running from Picatinny Arsenal in Rockaway Township, southwest toward Chester Township. It overlies the Cambrian Hardyston Quartzite.


The Triassic Stockton Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. It is named after Stockton, New Jersey, where it was first described. It is laterally equivalent to the New Oxford Formation in the Gettysburg Basin of Pennsylvania and Maryland.

The Triassic Lockatong Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. It is named after the Lockatong Creek in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.

The Watchung Outliers include six areas of isolated low hills and rock outcrops of volcanic and sedimentary origin in the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. These geologic outliers are primarily diminutive and detached remnants of the Triassic/Jurassic age Watchung Mountain basalt flows with intervening layers of sedimentary rock. All six of the outliers are found along the western edge of the Newark Basin, occupying small synclines adjacent to the Ramapo fault system. The outliers, from north to south, are known as: Ladentown, Union Hill, New Germantown/Oldwick, Prospect Hill, Sand Brook, and Jacksonwald.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kittatinny Valley</span>

The Kittatinny Valley is a section of the Great Appalachian Valley in Sussex and Warren counties in northwestern New Jersey that is bounded on the northwest by Kittatinny Mountain, and in the southeast by the New Jersey Highlands region. The valley is roughly 40 miles (64 km) long, with a breadth of 10 to 13 miles.

The Rove Formation is a sedimentary rock formation of Middle Precambrian age underlying the upper northeastern part of Cook County, Minnesota, United States, and extending into Ontario, Canada. It is the youngest of the many layers of sedimentary rocks which constitute the Animikie Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hardyston Quartzite</span> Bedrock unit in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, US

The Cambrian Hardyston Formation or Hardyston Quartzite is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minisink</span>

The Minisink or Minisink Valley is a loosely defined geographic region of the Upper Delaware River valley in northwestern New Jersey, northeastern Pennsylvania and New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen</span> Failed rift in the western and southern US of the triple junction that became the Iapetus Ocean

The Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen is a failed rift, or failed rift arm (aulacogen), of the triple junction that became the Iapetus Ocean spreading ridges. It is a significant geological feature in the Western and Southern United States. It formed sometime in the early to mid Cambrian Period and spans the Wichita Mountains, Taovayan Valley, Anadarko Basin, and Hardeman Basin in Southwestern Oklahoma. The Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen is primarily composed of basaltic dikes, gabbros, and units of granitic rock.

Robin Run is a dammed headwater major tributary of the Delaware River with a drainage area of 22.69 square miles that is 1.69 miles north 1.69 miles north of Mill Creek's Confluence with the Neshaminy Creek on the border of Buckingham and Wrightstown Townships), The headwaters originate in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania and the stream flows generally southeast to its confluence with Mill Creek in Wrightstown Township.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of Virginia</span>

The geology of Virginia began to form at least 1.8 billion years ago. The oldest rocks in the state were metamorphosed during the Grenville orogeny, a mountain-building event beginning 1.2 billion years ago in the Proterozoic, which obscured older rocks. Throughout the Proterozoic and Paleozoic, Virginia experienced igneous intrusions, carbonate and sandstone deposition, and a series of other mountain-building events which defined the terrain of the inland parts of the state. The closing of the Iapetus Ocean formed the supercontinent Pangaea, and created additional small landmasses, some of which are now hidden beneath thick Atlantic Coastal Plain sediments. The region subsequently experienced the rifting open of the Atlantic ocean in the Mesozoic, the development of the Coastal Plain, isolated volcanism, and a series of marine transgressions that flooded much of the area. Virginia has extensive deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas, as well as deposits of other minerals and metals, including vermiculite, kyanite and uranium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of New York (state)</span>

The geology of the State of New York is made up of ancient Precambrian crystalline basement rock, forming the Adirondack Mountains and the bedrock of much of the state. These rocks experienced numerous deformations during mountain building events and much of the region was flooded by shallow seas depositing thick sequences of sedimentary rock during the Paleozoic. Fewer rocks have deposited since the Mesozoic as several kilometers of rock have eroded into the continental shelf and Atlantic coastal plain, although volcanic and sedimentary rocks in the Newark Basin are a prominent fossil-bearing feature near New York City from the Mesozoic rifting of the supercontinent Pangea.

References

  1. "Bedrock Geologic Map of New Jersey" (PDF). Retrieved 2024-06-20.
  2. 1 2 3 Orndorff, R.C., et al., (1998). Bedrock Geologic Map of Central and Southern New Jersey. United States Geological Survey, Scale 1:100,000.
  3. 1 2 White, Ron W.; Monteverde, Donald H. (2006-02-01). "Karst in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area" (PDF). Unearthing New Jersey Vol. 2, No. 1. New Jersey Geological Survey. Retrieved 2008-06-07.
  4. White, I.C.; Chance, H.M. (1882). The geology of Pike and Monroe counties. Second Geol. Surv. of Penna. Vol. G6. pp. 53–57.