page_title: Goffle Hill
section_title: Geology
hierarchical_section_title: Goffle Hill / Geology
caption_attribution_description: English: Sandstone cliff seen on Goffle Hill, part of First Watchung Mountain, in Hawthorne.
context_page_description: Goffle Hill, also referred to as Goffle Mountain and historically known as Totoway Mountain and Wagaraw Mountain, is a range of the trap rock Watchung Mountains on the western edge of the Newark Basin in northern New Jersey. The hill straddles part of the border of Bergen County and Passaic County, underlying a mostly suburban setting. While hosting patches of woodlands, perched wetlands, and traprock glades, the hill is largely unprotected from development. Extensive quarrying for trap rock has obliterated large tracts of the hill in North Haledon, and Prospect Park. Conservation efforts seeking to preserve undeveloped land, such as the local Save the Woods initiative, are ongoing.
context_section_description: Goffle Hill formed as molten rock extruded onto the surface 185 million years ago.  At that time the range occupied the northern section of an active rift valley running through northern and central New Jersey and part of Pennsylvania.  After the rift failed in the early Jurassic, the range was elevated as erosion removed the sandstone and shale surrounding the basalt lava flows of Goffle Hill.
  The northern part of Goffle Hill, except in a few locations, is buried under a mantle of glacially derived sediments and sandstone, greatly reducing its topographic prominence.  The southern part of the ridge displays a significant amount of trap rock, though some underlying red sandstone reaches up to the ridgeline halfway along the border of North Haledon and Hawthorne where quarrying has stripped away overlying trap rock.  The majority of exposed trap rock occurs along high mural precipices facing to the east.
  Exposures of hornfels on Goffle Hill are limited, but they occur readily in at least one location.  Along the Hawthorne-North Haledon border a contact can be seen between adjacent sandstone and basalt.  This contact reveals the presence of indurated red sandstone that has been baked into a grey hornfels by the heat of the First Watchung lava flow.
caption: Sandstone cliff in Hawthorne
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