NJGS - Bulletin 61-I. The Cretaceous Fossils of NJ - State of New ...

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK
ON THE CRETACEOUS OF NEW JERSEY'
by Robert C. Ramsdell
This chapter ie not intended to be a complete summary of previous
work on the New Jersey Cretaeeous. Only the more important refer-
ences are cited. ' Except for a few pertinent works, articles of a strictly
paleontological nature are not discussed, although many such papers
are listed in the Bibliography.
The sediments and fossils of the New Jersey Coastal Plain were
among the first to attract the attention of early students of American
geology. Many considered the deposits to be of alluvial origin, but
others recognized their marine origin. By 1820 interest in these forma-
tions and their contained fossils was widespread. Among the early
workers were William Maclure, Charles Lyell, Samuel G. Morton,
Timothy A. Conrad, William Gabb and others. Their writings appeared
chiefly in the publications of the American Philosophical Society, the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and in the American
Jmrnal of Science. The collections of many of these writers are pre-
served in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Un-
fortunately the exact locality 'and horizon from which many of these
specimens were collected were not recorded and their labels read merely
'LCretaeeous, New Jersey."
Many early attempts were made to correlate the deposits of the New
Jersey Coastal Plain with those in other regions. Finch (1824) at-
tempted to show that the sediments were "contemporaneous with the
newer secondary and tertiary formations" of certain European areas.
Vanuxem (1828) considered the New Jersey deposits to be Upper Cre-
taceous. Morton (1830) correlated them with Lower Cretaceous sedi-
ments; however, he later (1832) recognized the presence of Upper Cre-
taceous fossils. Lyell (1845) correlated the New Jersey Cretaceous for-
mations with the divisions between the Gault and Maestrichtian of Eu-
rope. He also considered Morton's uppermost division of the New
Jersey Cretaeeous to be Eocene. Conrad (1848) similarly suggested
that the upper portions of the greensands3 possibly were of Tertiary
age.
Morton's Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group
of The United States was published in 1834. The Tertiary forms were
described by the same author in 1835. A large number of the fossils de-
scribedin these articles were collected in New Jersey. These publications
were the most important contributions to New Jersey paleontology until
Whitfield's monographs appeared in 1885 and 1892.
-
1 This chapter is adapted from Johnson and Richards (1952). and Groat, Orpmist
and Richards (1954).
ZAn excellent hintorical account of the early studies on the Coastal Plaim of New Jersey
is contained in Clark. Bag= and Shattuck (1898).
a Tho green color of these sediments in derived chiefly from the presence of large amount.
01 the min.r.1 g1au.onit..
NEW JERSEY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY