1990 Articles

Continental Coring of the Newark Rift

Olsen, Paul E.; Kent, Dennis V.

The entire Late Triassic record of the Newark continental rift of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania will be drilled to recover about 7000 m of continuous core under the National Science Foundation's Continental Lithosphere Program. Unlike the relatively well-known postrift sedimentary succession of continental margins, there is hardly any continental rift sequence known in the detail necessary for quantitative tectonic or stratigraphic models. The Newark basin is one of the most accessible and most studied rifts in the world. While much has been learned over the 150 years of study by piecing together the record from discontinuous outcrops [Manspeizer, 1988; Olsen et al., 1989], inevitable uncertainties in correlation and facies relationships have hampered the development of a comprehensive tectonic and stratigraphic history.