Roadside Geology of New Jersey

From the glacially scoured quartzite ridge that hosts the Appalachian Trail to the spectacular columnar basalt of Orange Mountain, New Jersey packs a boatload of geology into a small area. Its nineteenth—century marl pits were the birthplace of American vertebrate paleontology, bog iron deposits in the Pinelands were used to produce cannonballs for the Revolutionary War, world—famous fluorescent minerals are found with zinc deposits in the Franklin Marble, and the coastal plain sediments co...