Electrical Imaging of Triassic Fault System

Publication Abstract:

Continuous vertical electrical sounding (CVES) imaged early Triassic normal faults on the southeastern side of Mount Arlington Ridge, part of the northeast-southwest trending ridges within the New Jersey Highlands physiographic province of north-central New Jersey. The site had been previously characterized with a regional normal (down to the east) fault, the Longwood Valley Fault that places undefined Proterozoic bedrock units against the sandstone/conglomerate Silurian Green Pond Formation. The sandstone/conglomerates of the older Cambrian Hardyston Formation conformably overlie the Green Pond Formation. The Hardyston with the overlying Leithsville Formation and veneer of Pleistocene-aged glacial deposits comprises most of Long Valley within the study area.

CVES profiles collected normal to the Longwood Valley Fault show displacement within the Mesozoic sediments that are beneath the Pleistocene-aged glacial sediments in the contiguous valley. This previously unnamed fault system is termed the Kenvil Works Fault. Further, four or more synthetic faults exist between the Kenvil Works Fault and the Longwood Valley Fault. These faults accommodate right-rotational torsion between the two fault systems. The synthetic faults and Kenvil Works Fault System can act as a migration pathway for the movement of groundwater from the upland impermeable bedrock to the more permeable valley-fill sequences.

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Electrical Imaging of Triassic Fault System