Yesterday, while we were walking in Greenwood Forest WMA, so Ro could photograph a Buck Moth (saw lots, pictured none) we ran across a strange stone in the middle of a main sand trail. Pictured below, it was the only stone of this size anywhere around, was of a different material, bore no markings, and just didn't look right. It was at 39 degrees 51' 13.9" North, 74 degrees 23' 16.63" West.
Strange Stone
- Thread starter johnnyb
- Start date
Johnny,
I don't know anything about a stone being in that location. The soil in that area must have been trucked in because it does not look like normal PB soil. With that in mind I would say it just is a stone that was trucked in but as always I could be completely wrong.
BTW, nice shoes!
I don't know anything about a stone being in that location. The soil in that area must have been trucked in because it does not look like normal PB soil. With that in mind I would say it just is a stone that was trucked in but as always I could be completely wrong.
BTW, nice shoes!
I"d say it's an old survey stone,especially since it is obviously non native as you say.I have checked the topo for an obvious line.haven't checked all the aerials yet.Guy may be able to figure out what it goes too but it's always useful to store these coords away,never know when it might be the key to something bigger.
well that could be if the sand is not native sugar sand but that is most definitely not native stone.What say you Johnny B? Did the sand look odd or just a regular sugar sand road?
That opening is where a lot of horse trailers were parked. Look at the 2007 aerial. Maybe that had something to do with it. Maybe they used it to support the trailer hitch and forgot it.
I have seen all sizes of native rocks scattered across the land surface of the Pine Barrens, presumably rafted in by river ice several million years ago.
Did the rock surface have strange markings something like this? Did it look like sandstone as shown below?
S-M
Did the rock surface have strange markings something like this? Did it look like sandstone as shown below?
Those sand roads have been graded many times. I, and many others, have walked past that stone every Quail season, there are others scattered about. That entire checkboard area is the Quail Management area and dog trials are occasionally held there, probably the reason for the trailers, if they are horse trailers, they also show in 2002. The person that would know if anything was trucked in, is no longer with us, but I imagine someone from F&W would know. They have brought in material to patch some of the bigger holes in Bloody Ridge Rd, probably do the same elsewhere.
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I"ve seen cave passages where the ceilings are scalloped like that from fast moving water.I"ve also found large chunks of flint lying along the Maurice river at tide level but assumed the Indians brought them from out of state and buried them to keep them moist for knapping.
Manumuskin,
For extended periods of the Ice Age, strong winds flowed off the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Cold, dense air behaved like cave water. Sand was lifted into suspension, blasting pebbles and cobbles. All across South Jersey gravel surfaces are etched into facets, flutes, and grooves, and other forms; often with glossy rock coatings of silica and iron common to cold deserts. The above cobble was found in situ at surface in Newtonville at dune field’s edge.
The flat surface on the above cobble (its facet) was blasted flat by saltating sand, the flutes behind scoured by complex aerodynamic processes. The sharp line between the facet and flute is called a keel (like a boat bottom). These are desert stones called ventifacts (venta for wind, fact for faceted). South Jersey was desert-like during cold periods. Most native near-surface stones have battle scars from wind abrasion. That’s how I can tell if a stone is in place or moved. It looks like the location might be an river-deposited old gravel bar, a place where you would expect to find a rafted cobble. It the rock surface is not wind-affected, then the rock may have been locally quarried. I have found many such examples in various local pit deposits, some as big as a Buick.
I’m presenting Observations on Ventifacts and Wind-Polished Boulders in Pleistocene Coversands, Ice-Marginal New Jersey at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco next month.
S-M
For extended periods of the Ice Age, strong winds flowed off the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Cold, dense air behaved like cave water. Sand was lifted into suspension, blasting pebbles and cobbles. All across South Jersey gravel surfaces are etched into facets, flutes, and grooves, and other forms; often with glossy rock coatings of silica and iron common to cold deserts. The above cobble was found in situ at surface in Newtonville at dune field’s edge.
The flat surface on the above cobble (its facet) was blasted flat by saltating sand, the flutes behind scoured by complex aerodynamic processes. The sharp line between the facet and flute is called a keel (like a boat bottom). These are desert stones called ventifacts (venta for wind, fact for faceted). South Jersey was desert-like during cold periods. Most native near-surface stones have battle scars from wind abrasion. That’s how I can tell if a stone is in place or moved. It looks like the location might be an river-deposited old gravel bar, a place where you would expect to find a rafted cobble. It the rock surface is not wind-affected, then the rock may have been locally quarried. I have found many such examples in various local pit deposits, some as big as a Buick.
I’m presenting Observations on Ventifacts and Wind-Polished Boulders in Pleistocene Coversands, Ice-Marginal New Jersey at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco next month.
S-M
Many of the gravel pits down here have large rounded cobbles of quartz in them in the orange dirt and from experience digging forts in the woods when a kid beneath the humus layer is usually a foot or so of grey dirt then several feet of orange dirt and then you will usually hit a gravelly layer about four or five feet down that stops a kid with a shovel cold.I would then build a roof of logs and moss and fill the hole with hay and make recesses in the wall for candles and that would be my fort.You could walk across the top and never know it was there.Those were the days.
Me too, only we substituted corrugated tin chicken-coop roofing for tunnel capping. Rotten eggs were weapons of mass destruction when kin or neighbors dared declare war. My favorite fort spot was a duck pond (spung) at the end of the horse pasture, long since dried away. Once I dug into an ancient camp fire buried deep beneath the spung rim, and saw lots of flint-knappings (debitage) I can't remember ever having dirt-free fingernails; can you! One day a bulldozer fell into our lair, hired to make more turkey runs into the woods. Luckily we were not at play, but boy did we get a scolding.
S-M
I have dug into a few fire pits myself along tributaries that run into the Maurice.Most of my old surface hunting sites are now peoples yards but I know a few good spots still in the woods along freshwater feeder streams that will turn up some points and flakes with a little bit of effort digging.I haven't done this in quite awhile though.Used to know an old man who would let us dig in his woods but he's gone now and I don't know the owners anymore.I know an area that I think would turn up a lot but it's nature conservancy and I think they'd frown on it.I think it disturbs the historical context if your not an official archaeologist.Used to be a lot of nice surface hunting in bacons field but the state bought it off of Bacon and never plowed it again,it's turning into woods now.Still find stuff along the river though at low tide.
Manumuskin
The sand road the stone was in had lots of rounded quartz pebbles up to maybe an inch and half in size. The sand was yellowish, and looked the same all the way into the woods wherever it was bare. We see similar soil/pebbles down on some dike roads at Parker Preserve, brought from elsewhere on the Preserve. This road had been graded as there were little "curbs" from the blade in some spots. Saw nothing like this stone's material during our walk, which is what made me post the picture. It was located almost in the middle of the road and maybe 50 - 75 feet south of the intersection with the grassy area south boundary sand road.
Enjoy your comments ......
The sand road the stone was in had lots of rounded quartz pebbles up to maybe an inch and half in size. The sand was yellowish, and looked the same all the way into the woods wherever it was bare. We see similar soil/pebbles down on some dike roads at Parker Preserve, brought from elsewhere on the Preserve. This road had been graded as there were little "curbs" from the blade in some spots. Saw nothing like this stone's material during our walk, which is what made me post the picture. It was located almost in the middle of the road and maybe 50 - 75 feet south of the intersection with the grassy area south boundary sand road.
Enjoy your comments ......
I have the old survey of that location from years ago. There is nothing shown there. There are 3 along where 539 is today but they had to have been removed during the widening of 539 back in the 30's. I will see if I can find it.
Let me explain this Clayton Newbold survey from 1792. Click on the photo to make it larger. Starting on the left at the orange arrow we have a pine stump. The lime green arrow is where a very large Clayton Newbold stone was as recent as 1959. It is long gone now. The light blue arrow is the beginning of Bryant Road and that goes along the dark blue arrows all the way to the very dark blue arrow at 539 where there was at one time 3 stones. They are long gone.The circled area is where Johnny found the stone. The purple arrow is the beginning of the Chamberlain survey where the Lawrence Line crosses and stone 21 was at one time. The 1957/1959 survey does not show it there then and I have never found it. That is brier central. Look closely at the red arrow and you can see the bump in the survey which is still there. There is a monument and an old cedar post still there today that is mentioned in the late 50's survey.
I don't want to say it is not a survey stone, but I have viewed stones like that before in random places that were not survey stones. They were most likely brought there in the fill dirt used to make or improve the roads. There always is a chance the stone is from a more recent survey but I also have them and I am really really sorry to say nothing is there.
Guy
I don't want to say it is not a survey stone, but I have viewed stones like that before in random places that were not survey stones. They were most likely brought there in the fill dirt used to make or improve the roads. There always is a chance the stone is from a more recent survey but I also have them and I am really really sorry to say nothing is there.
Guy
Now thats the final word!With info like that I"d have to agree with Guy.That poor stone is just that,just a stone.It's ashame.It would look real nice with a nail hole in the top of it