Goat Hill, Lambertville, Hunterdon Co., New Jersey, USA

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Ref.: NJ State Geol. Annual Rpt. (1888):37-38.

Goat Hill is a local portion of the Lambertville Sill, immediately south of Lambertville, New Jersey, that rises abruptly above the Delaware River. The Goat Hill Quarry is located on the very steep hillside, above Rt. 29 along a section of that road known locally as “the narrows”. The remnants of some loading docks, made of diabase stone blocks, can be seen along the road.

From Goat Hill the Lambertville Sill extends a short distance southwest into Pennsylvania, as Solebury Mountain, and approximately 16 miles northeast. Over most of its length to the northeast the sill forms a low ridge and is known as Sourland Mountain (famous as the site of the Lindbergh baby’s murder in 1932).

The Lambertville Sill is an up-faulted, down dip extension of the Palisades intrusive complex. At Goat Hill the sill is approximately 1300 feet thick and nearly conformable with the sediments of the lower part of the Passaic Formation. A more detailed discussion of the geochemistry of the diabase at Goat Hill is found in Husch and Hozsik (1988).

The Goat Hill Quarry is quite shallow, not excavated deeply into the hillside. This seems to be because it was not a crushed stone operation but rather was worked to produce Belgian blocks. A significant number of secondary mineral species were reported from here by Ritter and Ritter (1956).

References:

Husch, J. M., Bambrick, t. C., Eliason, W. M. , Roth, E. A., Schwimmer, R. A., Sturgis, D. A. and Trione, C. W., 1988, A review of the petrology and geochemistry of mesozoic diabase from the central Newark Basin: New petrogenetic insights, in Husch, J. M., and Hozik, M. J, 3eds., Geology of the central Newark Basin: Geological Association of New Jersey, Fifth annual meeting, Guidebooki and proceedings, p. 149 – 194.

Husch, J. M., and Hozik, M. J., 1988, Mesozoic diabases along the Delaware River: A road log for a half-day field trip, in Husch, J. M., and Hozik, M. J, 3eds., Geology of the central Newark Basin: Geological Association of New Jersey, Fifth annual meeting, Guidebooki and proceedings, p. 291 – 331.

Ritter, M and Ritter, M, 1956, Datolite from Lambertville, New Jersey, Keystone Newsletter, The Mineralogical Society of Pennsylvania, V. 6, no. 2.

Mineral List

Albite 'Apophyllite' Calcite 'Chlorite Group'

Datolite Epidote 'Hornblende' Laumontite

Natrolite Pectolite Prehnite 'Stilbite'

Stilpnomelane 'Tourmaline'

14 entries listed. 9 valid minerals.