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The Newark Basin is a sediment-filled rift basin located mainly in northern New Jersey but also stretching into south-eastern Pennsylvania and southern New York. It is part of the system of Eastern North America Rift Basins .
The Newark Supergroup consists largely of poorly sorted nonmarine sediments; typical rocks are breccia, conglomerate, arkose sandstone, siltstone, and shale. [3] [4] Most of the strata are red beds that feature ripple marks, mud cracks, and even rain drop prints; dinosaur footprints are common, though actual body fossils are very rare. [4]
A chief difference between the Boonton Formation and all other formations of the Newark Basin is that the lower part of the formation lacks a cyclic deposition pattern. Typically, the sedimentary formations of the Newark Basin feature recurring periods of wet and dry deposition, resulting in a series of alternating red and gray-black beds.
The Newark Basin is a region in northern New Jersey defined by the boundaries of a sediment-filled rift basin. This basin was formed when the supercontinent Pangaea began to split approximately 220 million years ago, causing several large depressions to form due to extension, which then filled with sediment.
USGS cross-section of the Newark Basin. Erosion began to attack the basin as rifting failed and deposition of new sediments ceased. Over millions of years, erosion ate downward through the tilted rock of the basin, eventually encountering the basalt layers that are significantly more erosion resistant than the surrounding sedimentary rock.
The Palisades are among the most dramatic geologic features in the vicinity of New York City, forming a canyon of the Hudson north of the George Washington Bridge, as well as providing a vista of the Manhattan skyline. They sit in the Newark Basin, a rift basin located mostly in New Jersey.
A band of mountains that rise nearly one thousand feet along the northwestern margin of the Newark Basin in New York and New Jersey are called the Ramapo Mountains. Another belt of ancient metamorphic and igneous rock crops out along the southern margin of the Newark Basin south and west of Trenton, New Jersey.
The Ramapo Fault forms the western boundary of the Newark Basin. It is the surface location of the fault between basement blocks of Precambrian bedrock shown in orange. New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and southeastern New York are divided geologically into four physiographic provinces, each distinctive in their