This page offers general to specific information of NJ amber and it's place in paleontology. Historically, NJ has ranked among the worlds premier amber producing sites for insects in amber. Some of the world's oldest amber comes right from little New Jersey.
But first...here are some pictures of the Amber Digging Gang!
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Nick is a good gauge for how deep and big the amber recovery pits were! |
Raw amber fresh out of the lignite layer |
Gene is digging deep in a very thick lignite layer. |
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Here's Keith proving he wants that amber the most. |
There's Derek and Ed toiling away at lignite chunks. |
Geological Background
Most of the insect bearing amber from New Jersey comes from the Raritan Formation. It is the oldest lithographic unit in the NJ Coastal Plains. The Raritan is dated to about 95 million years ago. This formation is mostly a continental to a marginal deltaic deposit. (The amber layers are found in the Woodbridge Member of the Raritan and was deposited under a mangrove-like channel type environment.) The Raritan's general lithology is one of light colored sands and variegated clays interbedded with, at times, lignite.
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A caddis fly with fingers for scale. |
A leaf hopper nymph, note the ornate "rosettes" on it's carapace. |
A protrupoid wasp |
Historical Background and Significance
For well over a hundred years the Raritan and Magothy Formations in Central New Jersey have been commercially mined for sand and clay. This industry has, at times, aided in the discovery of many important finds. Around the turn of the century Hungarian immigrant workers digging in a Woodbridge clay pit discovered a therapod dinosaur trackway. This find still represents the only trackway east of the Mississippi from the Cretaceous. In the 1960's amateur paleontologists found an insect bearing layer of amber from the Cliffwood beach locality. One of the many specimens recovered was the now famed Sphecomyrma ant find. By the 1990's amateurs once again hit a very large and productive layer at the White Oaks sand pit in Sayreville, NJ. So many new species of insects were recovered that to this day most remain unidentified. What has come to light though is a whole suite of some of the world's oldest and previously unknown insects. But not just insects were found here. The world's oldest known mushroom, ancestral oak, and even feathers of birds were amazingly found also.
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The Oldest known Mushroom in the world |
The oldest known stingless bee. |
Go to the New Jersey Amber Identification Web Page
Return to North Jersey PaleoWorld
Check out Steve Kurth's Amber Room: Amber of New Jersey Web Page
