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New Jersey Geologic & Water Survey’s Geocaching Sites

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Geocaching (pronounced “geo-cashing”) is an outdoor recreational activity that focuses on locating places (or geocaches) that mark treasures, mysteries or puzzles, geological features, and more at specific coordinates through use of a GPS, a smartphone, or other coordinate-reading device. An EarthCache is a special type of geocache that you can visit to learn about an unique geological feature on the Earth.

The following is a list of Earthcache sites hosted by the New Jersey Geological & Water Survey:

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The Edison Mines
From the Revolutionary War to the turn of the 20th century, iron was mined at the site now named for Thomas Alva Edison. Edison founded an iron mining and processing company here in the 1890’s and made important contributions to the field of mining technology. The Edison Mines are rich with historic ruins, numerous hiking trails, abandoned railroads and many abandoned mines to explore in this interesting area.

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Glacial Garbage, Grabs, and Graffiti

Glaciers wreaked havoc in North America in their 2.1 million years of comings and goings. In northern New Jersey, they left quite a mess from their mischievous meanderings. At this Earthcache on Kittatinny Mountain, visit a GLACIAL ERRATIC (a boulder from another neighborhood) that has been wrongly imprisoned. A victim of circumstance, the erratic was at the wrong place at the wrong time, left behind as a glacier retreated, with the warming climate in hot pursuit.

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Four Hundred Million Year-Old Mud Cracks

The rocks exposed at this Earthcache highlight two environmental changes that occurred during the geologic history of northwestern New Jersey. You’ll also find deformed 400 million year-old mud cracks that tells us the story of continental collision and the building of a mountain range.

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Palisades Sill
What happens when tectonic forces start to rip a continent in two? At the Palisades sill you can see one chapter of this geologic story.

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Two Hundred Million Year-Old Lava Flow

Hiding deep in Mine Brook Park is a treasure waiting to be discovered! Approximately two hundred million years ago the rifting of Pangea spurred volcanic activity throughout New Jersey. Rock exposures along Walnut Brook tell a vicious story of Earth’s trembling past.

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Artifacts and Ichnofossils

Here, visitors will explore a rock shelter used by Lenape Indians during the Archaic Period (8,000-1,000 BC), as well as examine approximately 400 million year ago trace fossils, formed by soft-bodied wormlike marine organisms known as Zoophycos.

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