Navesink Formation

Sand, glauconite, medium-grained, clayey and silty, massive, dark-gray to dark-gray-green, extensively bioturbated, locally contains large calcareous shells; sand-size mica, locally abundant; weathers light brown or red brown. Basal quartz sand is fine- to coarse-grained, pebbly, massive, light-yellow, and somewhat glauconitic, as much as 2 m (7 ft) thick and formed by the reworking of the underlying Mount Laurel Formation (Owens and others, 1977). Exogyra costata and the belemnite Belemnitella americana occur in the basal quartz sand. Crops out in a narrow belt throughout map area. Fresh exposures occur along tributaries of Raccoon Creek near Mullica Hill, Gloucester County. The Navesink is 3 to 7.5 m (10-25 ft) thick. The Navesink and Red Bank deposits represent a transgressive (Navesink)-regressive (Red Bank) cycle of sedimentation (Owens and Sohl, 1969). The cycle is unconformity-bounded at top and bottom. Within the cycle, the formational contact is gradational. The age of the Navesink was determined from both the macrofauna and microfauna. Planktic foraminifera from the lower part of the Navesink are indicative of the Rugotruncana subcircumnodifera Subzone of early Maastrichtian age (Smith, in Owens and others, 1977). The upper part contains the mollusks Exogyra costata, Sphenodiscus lobatus, and Pycnodonte vesicularis indicating a middle to late Maastrichtian age. Planktic foraminifera from the upper part represent the Gansserina gansseri Subzone of middle Maastrichtian age (Smith, in Owens and others, 1977). Pollen in the Navesink and Sandy Hook Member of the Red Bank are similar; the Navesink microflora is a CA6/MA-1 Zone in Wolfe's (1976) classification. The Navesink, therefore, ranges from early to late Maastrichtian. Sugarman and others (1995) assigned a middle Maastrichtian Zone CC 25 to the Navesink.
State New Jersey
Name Navesink Formation
Geologic age Upper Cretaceous, Maastrichtian
Lithologic constituents
Major
Unconsolidated > Coarse-detrital > Sand (Bed)Sand, glauconite, medium-grained, clayey and silty, massive, dark-gray to dark-gray-green, extensively bioturbated, locally contains large calcareous shells; sand-size mica, locally abundant; weathers light brown or red brown. Basal quartz sand is fine- to coarse-grained, pebbly, massive, light-yellow, and somewhat glauconitic, as much as 2 m (7 ft) thick and formed by the reworking of the underlying Mount Laurel Formation (Owens and others, 1977). Exogyra costata and the belemnite Belemnitella americana occur in the basal quartz sand.
Minor
Unconsolidated > Fine-detrital > Silt (Bed)clayey and silty
Unconsolidated > Fine-detrital > Clay (Bed)clayey and silty
References

Dalton, R.F., Herman, G.C., Monteverde, D.H., Pristas, R.S., Sugarman, P.J., and Volkert, R.A., 1999, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Bedrock Geology and Topographic Base Maps of New Jersey: New Jersey Geological Survey CD Series CD 00-1; ARC/INFO (v. 7.1), scale 1:100,000.

Owens, James P., Sugarman, Peter J., Sohl, Norman F., Parker, Ronald A., Houghton, Hugh F., Volkert, Richard A., Drake, Avery A., Jr., and Orndorff, Randall C., 1998, Bedrock Geologic Map of Central and Southern New Jersey: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-2540-B, 8 cross sections, 4 sheets, each size 58x41, scale 1:100,000.

https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/i2540B

Owens, J.P., Sohl, N.F., and Minard, J.P., 1977, A field guide to Cretaceous and lower Tertiary beds of the Raritan and Salisbury embayments, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland: Washington, D.C., American Association of Petroleum Geologists and Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, 113 p.

Owens, J.P., and Sohl, N.F., 1969, Shelf and deltaic paleoenvironments in the Cretaceous-Tertiary formations of the New Jersey Coastal Plain, Field Trip 2, in Subitzky, Seymour, ed., Geology of selected areas in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania and guidebook of excursions: New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, p. 235-278

Wolfe, J.A., 1976, Stratigraphic distribution of some pollen types from the Campanian and lower Maestrichtian rocks (Upper Cretaceous) of the Middle Atlantic States: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 977, 18 p.

https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/pp977

Sugarman, P.J., Miller, K.G., Bukry, David, and Feigenson, M.D., 1995, Uppermost Campanian-Maestrichtian strontium isotopic, biostratigraphic, and sequence stratigraphic framework of the New Jersey Coastal Plain: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 107, no. 1, p. 19-37.

NGMDB product
Counties Burlington - Camden - Gloucester - Monmouth - Salem