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 Denviile 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

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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. 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.

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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.

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

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

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

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The Pimple Hills are a range of the New York-New Jersey Highlands region of the Appalachian Mountains. The summit, reaching a height of 1,122 feet (342 m), lies within Sussex County, New Jersey.

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The geology of Virginia began to form 1.8 billion years ago and potentially even earlier. 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, to form the supercontinent Pangaea added 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 coal, deposits of oil and natural gas, as well as deposits of other minerals and metals, including vermiculite, kyanite and uranium.

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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. http://www.state.nj.us/dep/njgs/enviroed/freedwn/psnjmap.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  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. Rept. of Progress, G6. Harrisburg. pp. 53–57.