Sand and clay. Upper sand facies: sand, typically fine- to medium-grained, massive to thick-bedded, locally crossbedded, light-yellow to white, locally very micaceous and extensively stained by iron oxides in near-surface beds. The thick-bedded strata commonly consist of interbedded fine-grained, micaceous sand and gravelly, coarse- to fine-grained sand. Some beds are intensely burrowed. Trough crossbedded strata with high concentrations of ilmenite and a few burrows are most commonly seen in the Lakewood quadrangle. Lower clay facies: clay and clay-silt, massive to thin-bedded, dark-gray, micaceous, contains wood fragments, flattened lignitized twigs, and other plant debris. Locally, the clay has irregularly shaped sand pockets, which may represent some type of burrow. In the least weathered beds, the sand of the upper sand facies is principally quartz and muscovite with lesser amounts of feldspar. The light-mineral fraction of the dark-colored clay has significantly more feldspar (10-15 percent) and rock fragments (10-15 percent) than the upper sand facies, where the feldspar was probably leached during weathering. The basal beds have a reworked zone 0.3 to 1.2 m (1-4 ft) thick that contains fine- to very coarse grained sand and, locally, gravel. These beds are very glauconitic and less commonly contain wood fragments. Reworked zones are present throughout the lower member. The lower member consists of a lower finegrained, clayey, dark-colored, micaceous sand (transgressive) and an upper massive or thick-bedded to crossbedded, light-colored sand (regressive). The lower, dark clayey unit was formerly called the Asbury Park Member. The clay-silt was previously called the Asbury Clay by Kmmel and Knapp (1904). The upper sand facies has been observed only in pits and roadcuts. It is poorly exposed because of its sandy nature. In the central sheet, the lower clay facies is exposed in pits north of Farmingdale, Monmouth County; in a few cuts along the Manasquan River, north of Farmingdale; and along the Shark River, northeast of Farmingdale. In the southern sheet, the lower clay facies is exposed only where the Coastal Plain was deeply entrenched and stripped away. In the southwesternmost part of the southern sheet, for example, the Cohansey Formation and much of the upper sand facies were stripped away by successive entrenchments of the Delaware River. On the central sheet, the lower member ranges in thickness from 20 to 30 m (66-98 ft) along strike, but thickens to over 60 m (197 ft) to the southeast. On the southern sheet, the unit ranges in thickness from 15 to 25 m (49-82 ft). The age of the lower member is based on the presence of the diatom Actinoptychus heliopelta, which was recovered from an exposure southwest of Farmingdale near Oak Glen, Monmouth County (Goldstein, 1974). This diatom places the lower member in the lower part of the ECDZ 1 of Andrews (1987), indicative of an early Miocene (Burdigalian) age (Andrews, 1988). Sugarman and others (1993) report strontium-isotope ages of 22.6 to 20.8 Ma, thereby extending the age of the unit to Aquitanian.