Cape May diamonds

Last updated
Cape May diamonds Cape May diamonds.jpg
Cape May diamonds

Cape May diamonds (sometimes capitalized "Diamonds") are quartz pebbles found on the beaches of Cape May Point, New Jersey. The pebbles are sometimes collected, cut and polished to resemble diamonds, then sold locally as souvenirs. Cape May diamonds are usually collected by beach combing and are most abundant at Higbee (sometimes, Higby's) and Sunset beaches in Cape May. Cape May diamonds range in size from the finest sand to a 3-pound-14-ounce (1.8 kg) "Cape May diamond" found in New Castle, Delaware in 1866. [1] In the 1960s a small intact quartz crystal was found at Sunset Beach which showed almost no signs of rounding by erosion. This dispelled some early myths of their source which included a large boulder of quartz offshore.

Contents

Origin

Cape May diamonds are actually pieces of quartz washed down, and worn smooth in the process, from the upper Delaware River. [1] Apocryphally, the trip takes thousands of years. [2] [3] However, geologists suggest the pebbles are local in origin, washing out of nearby Pleistocene gravel deposits. [4] [5] Cape May diamonds are sometimes incorrectly described as river-smoothed glass discarded by New Jersey's once-thriving glass manufacturing industry.[ citation needed ]

Historical relevance

The Native American tribe called the Kechemeche resided in what is now the southern portion of Cape May County, New Jersey. Various sources attribute the Kechemeche with being the first to find Cape May diamonds and then using them as gifts or for trading with other tribes and with the newly arriving European colonists.[ citation needed ]

See also

Works cited

  1. 1 2 "Diamonds are forever". Backpacker. 15 (81). July 1987. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  2. Doug Hunsberger (2009-05-05). "Cape May's Sparkling Stones: Cape May diamonds are not diamonds at all, but they have been known to fool the most discriminating eyes". New Jersey Monthly . Retrieved 2017-03-03. Thus begins a journey of more than 200 miles that takes thousands of years to complete.
  3. Sutton, Clay (2006). Birds and Birding at Cape May. Stackpole. ISBN   9780811731348.
  4. State of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (1981). New Jersey Shore Protection Plan (Volume 2 Basis and Background).
  5. New Jersey Geological Survey (1857). Geology of the County of Cape May, State of New Jersey. Printed at the office of the True American. pp.  26. diamonds.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape May County, New Jersey</span> County in New Jersey, United States

Cape May County is the southernmost county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Much of the county is located on the Cape May peninsula, bound by the Delaware Bay to its west and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and east. Adjacent to the Atlantic coastline are five barrier islands that have been built up as seaside resorts. A consistently popular summer destination with 30 miles (48 km) of beaches, Cape May County attracts vacationers from New Jersey and surrounding states, with the summer population exceeding 750,000. Tourism generates annual revenues of about $6.6 billion as of 2018, making it the county's single largest industry. The associated leisure and hospitality industries are Cape May's largest employers. Its county seat is the Cape May Court House section of Middle Township. The county is part of the Jersey Shore region of the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape May, New Jersey</span> City in Cape May County, New Jersey, US

Cape May is a city and seaside resort located at the southern tip of Cape May Peninsula in Cape May County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Located where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean, it is one of the country's oldest vacation resort destinations. The city, and all of Cape May County, is part of the Ocean City metropolitan statistical area, and is part of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD combined statistical area, also known as the Delaware Valley or Philadelphia metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Placer deposit</span> Accumulation of valuable minerals formed by gravity separation

In geology, a placer deposit or placer is an accumulation of valuable minerals formed by gravity separation from a specific source rock during sedimentary processes. The name is from the Spanish word placer, meaning "alluvial sand". Placer mining is an important source of gold, and was the main technique used in the early years of many gold rushes, including the California Gold Rush. Types of placer deposits include alluvium, eluvium, beach placers, aeolian placers and paleo-placers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delaware Water Gap</span> Geological feature along the Delaware River

Delaware Water Gap is a water gap on the border of the U.S. states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania where the Delaware River cuts through a large ridge of the Appalachian Mountains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pebble</span> Small rock fragment

A pebble is a clast of rock with a particle size of 4–64 mm (0.16–2.52 in) based on the Udden-Wentworth scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered larger than granules and smaller than cobbles. A rock made predominantly of pebbles is termed a conglomerate. Pebble tools are among the earliest known man-made artifacts, dating from the Palaeolithic period of human history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon Coast</span> Coastal region of the U.S. state of Oregon

The Oregon Coast is a coastal region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to its west and the Oregon Coast Range to the east, and stretches approximately 362 miles (583 km) from the California state border in the south to the Columbia River in the north. The region is not a specific geological, environmental, or political entity, and includes the Columbia River Estuary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape May</span> Cape at the southern most point of New Jersey

Cape May consists of a peninsula and barrier island system in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is roughly coterminous with Cape May County and runs southwards from the New Jersey mainland, separating Delaware Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The southernmost point in both New Jersey and the northeastern United States lies on the cape. A number of resort communities line the Atlantic side of the cape, including Ocean City, the most populous community on the cape, The Wildwoods, known for its architecturally significant hotel district, and the city of Cape May, which has served as a resort community since the mid-1700s, making it the oldest such resort in the U.S.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunset Beach, New Jersey</span>

Sunset Beach is a beach located on the Cape May Peninsula, in Lower Township, New Jersey, near Cape May Point, along the Delaware Bay, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a local tourist attraction due in part to its proximity to the SS Atlantus, also known as the Concrete Ship, and the Cape May Lighthouse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuckahoe, New Jersey</span> Populated place in Cape May County, New Jersey, US

Tuckahoe is a census-designated place (CDP) unincorporated community located within Upper Township in Cape May County of New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thin section</span> Thin slice of a material prepared for microscopic examination

In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section is a thin slice of a rock or mineral sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron microprobe. A thin sliver of rock is cut from the sample with a diamond saw and ground optically flat. It is then mounted on a glass slide and then ground smooth using progressively finer abrasive grit until the sample is only 30 μm thick. The method uses the Michel-Lévy interference colour chart to determine thickness, typically using quartz as the thickness gauge because it is one of the most abundant minerals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape May National Wildlife Refuge</span> Wildlife habitat in New Jersey, US

The Cape May National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area on the Cape May Peninsula in Cape May County, New Jersey. It is part of the National Wildlife Refuge System and managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Established in January 1989 with 90 acres (0.36 km2) acquired from the Nature Conservancy, it has since grown to more than 11,000 acres (45 km2) in size, and plans call for its further expansion to more than 21,200 acres (86 km2). It comprises three distinct and non-contiguous units: the Delaware Bay Division, the Great Cedar Swamp Division and the Two Mile Beach Unit. Located in the Middle Atlantic coastal forests ecoregion, the cape provides habitat for large numbers of migratory birds.

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

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.

The Kechemeche were a Lenni Lenape tribe of Native Americans that lived in the area generally known today as the southern portion of Cape May County, New Jersey, an area bounded on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay on the other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shingle beach</span> Beach which is armoured with pebbles or small- to medium-sized cobbles

A shingle beach, also known as either a cobble beach or gravel beach, is a commonly narrow beach that is composed of coarse, loose, well-rounded, and waterworn gravel, called shingle. The gravel (shingle) typically consists of smooth, spheroidal to flattened, pebbles, cobbles, and sometimes small boulders, generally in the 20 to 200 millimetres size range. Shingle beaches typically have a steep slope on both their landward and seaward sides. Shingle beaches form in wave-dominated locations where resistant bedrock cliffs provide gravel-sized rock debris. They are also found in high latitudes and temperate shores where the erosion of Quaternary glacial deposits provide gravel-size rock fragments. This term is most widely used in Great Britain.

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

The geology of Jersey is characterised by the Late Proterozoic Brioverian volcanics, the Cadomian Orogeny, and only small signs of later deposits from the Cambrian and Quaternary periods. The kind of rocks go from conglomerate to shale, volcanic, intrusive and plutonic igneous rocks of many compositions, and metamorphic rocks as well, thus including most major types.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sand</span> Granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles

Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of soil or soil type; i.e., a soil containing more than 85 percent sand-sized particles by mass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fire Control Tower No. 23</span> United States historic place

Fire Control Tower No. 23 is a NRHP-listed tower located in Lower Township, Cape May County, New Jersey, United States. The tower was built in 1942 as part of Fort Miles, the system of harbor defenses of the Delaware Bay. It was one of 15 towers from North Wildwood, New Jersey to Bethany Beach, Delaware used to aim coastal batteries at German ships and submarines. It is located near Sunset Beach in Cape May Point State Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">December 1992 nor'easter</span>

The December 1992 nor'easter produced record high tides and snowfall across the northeastern United States. It developed as a low pressure area on December 10 over Virginia, and for two days it remained over the Mid-Atlantic states before moving offshore. In Maryland, the snowfall unofficially reached 48 in (1,200 mm); if verified, the total would have been the highest in the state's history. About 120,000 people were left without power in the state due to high winds. Along the Maryland coast, the storm was less severe than the Perfect Storm in the previous year, although the strongest portion of the storm remained over New Jersey for several days. In the state, winds reached 80 mph (130 km/h) in Cape May, and tides peaked at 10.4 ft (3.2 m) in Perth Amboy. The combination of high tides and 25 ft (7.6 m) waves caused the most significant flooding in the state since the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962. Several highways and portions of the New York City Subway and Port Authority Trans-Hudson systems were closed due to the storm. Throughout New Jersey, the nor'easter damaged about 3,200 homes and caused an estimated $750 million in damage (1992 USD).

<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">Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area</span> Area in Cape May County, New Jersey

Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area is a 1,159-acre (469 ha) wildlife management area in Lower Township, Cape May County, New Jersey.