Creation of the Palisades

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Originally referred to as the Weehawken (rocks that look like rows of trees) by the Lenape, the cliffs that run along northeastern New Jersey and southern New York: the lower part of the Hudson River, have become known as the Palisades (fence of stakes). The cliffs are approximately 20 miles long and range from 300-540 feet high. They consist of marine originated items such as grains, fragments of fossils, and precipitates all made of calcium carbonate. These marine items were deposited in the ocean millions of years ago and were eventually lifted up to their position far above sea level. The Palisades were formed in the late early Jurassic Period around 186 million years ago during a plate shift where one plate went below the other pushing them up to 20,000 feet above sea level. In certain areas the mountains seems to stop but pick up again. These “tear faults” formed due to the subsidiary thrust faults that occurred after the initial occurrence. There is still evidence of the original landscape, changed by glaciers that moved through the lower Hudson River Valley, shown in the current path of the Hudson River. Long after their formation, in the middle of the 19^th century, the Palisades were used for building materials, concrete aggregate and firewood. However in 1900 the New Jersey Federation of Women’s Clubs and the Palisades Interstate Park Commission formed and managed the land. In the 1930’s the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) built park trails which remain and are used today.