50. Cheesequake State Park Cheesequake State Park got its unusual name from a word of forgotten
meaning from the Leni-Lenape Indians who fished and hunted in the area
long ago. The park was established in 1940 and has grown to encompass
1,274 acres. Although mostly a wildlife refuge, the park as also has picnic,
swimming, and camping facilities. The park offers a variety of hiking
trails through scenic woodlands along the shore of an expansive salt marsh
along Cheesequake Creek (Figure 124). Despite being bisected by the Garden
State Parkway, being neighbor to a massive landfill Superfund site, and
its proximity to development, the park is one of the closest remaining
natural areas to the City. The park had at one time been partially developed
in the last century with numerous buildings that supported a pottery factory.
The ruins of an old dock along Cheesequake Creek is a reminder of times
when ships were the primary means of transport for commerce (and smuggling).
Cheesequake is an extremely treasured preserve among the growing suburban
clutter fringing the shores of Raritan Bay!
The park is open year-round during daylight hours. An admission fee is
charged between Memorial Day and Labor Day. To get there, take the Garden
State Parkway to Exit 120. Head south about a half mile on Laurence Harbor
Parkway and turn right on to Morristown Avenue at a traffic light. Proceed
about a half mile to Gordon Road and turn right. In a half mile you will
reach the park entrance and park office; trailhead parking is on the left
side of the road past the park entrance kiosk A short walk through the
woods leads to the park's Interpretive Center. The sedimentary rock formations underlying Cheesequake State Park include
the Magothy Formation, the Merchantville Formation, the Woodbury Shale,
and the the Englishtown Formation (oldest to youngest respectively). The
Magothy is very well-exposed along creeks and lower hillsides throughout
the park. The top of the Merchantville and the overlying dark-gray Woodbury
Shale are well-exposed in an abandoned cut next to the Garden State Parkway
on the north side of Cheesequake Creek. These formations and the overlying
Englishtown Formation crop out along the hillsides on the south side of
the park. From a geological perspective, the landscape around Cheesequake
Creek is very young. Meltwater from the glaciers may have helped carve
broad the valley of Cheesequake Creek when the advancing Pleistocene ice
sheets temporarily blocked the flow of the Raritan River. The hillsides
along the southern shore of the park preserve step-like terraces representing
stages of time when broader stream valleys developed. The on-going processes
of glacial rebound and stream down-carving left the older stream flood
plains as terraces along the stream valley. In places the surface of the
terraces still display scattered accumulations of the iron-stained quartz
pebbles left by migrating streams. These deposits could be considered
as outliers of the Pensauken or Bridgetown Formation. The wetlands have
formed perhaps only in the last several thousand years as rising sea level
progressively flooded the once deeper valleys of the Raritan and Cheesequake
Creek. The progression of wetlands development proceeded gradually as
sediment was trapped by an ever-increasing variety of salt marsh and wetland
plant species. Sediments continued to back-fill the slack-waters and flats
along the tidal creek. A two to four mile walk along trails through the park is beautiful any
time of the year, but it is best when the weather conditions are cool
and therefore, less buggy. The park has well-maintained, closed gravel
roads and trails with boardwalks. Trail maps and guides are available
at the Park Office and at the Interpretive Center. One stretch of boardwalk
passes through a very scenic grove of eastern white cedars; another crosses
the tidal marsh. Trails wind through mature mixed deciduous forests and
through patches of mountain laurel along the shores of the salt marsh
(Figure 125) . The well-drained sandy acidic soil on the upland terraces
are home to pitch pine, similar to the "pine barrens" which
dominate the landscape farther south.
The occurrence of pitch pines at Cheesequake offer an interesting perspective
on the origin of amber. A particularly strong nor'easter in the late winter
of 1993 caused considerable wind and flooding damage in the region The
combined effect of wind and flooding stripped away most of the loose plant
debris near shore and across the salt marsh, and piled it in great heaps
at the back of the slack-water areas of the marsh. Amongst the flotsam
was an abundance of large balls of tree sap from the pitch pines. This
environmental setting is perhaps a good analog for the formation of the
amberiferous lignite deposits in the Raritan Formation around Kennedy
Park.
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U.S. Department of the Interior,
U.S. Geological Survey Maintainer: WESP team webmaster contact FOIA || Privacy Statement || Disclaimer || Accessibility URL: http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/nyc/parks/loc50.htm This site last updated July 22, 2003 (ps) |