The New International Encyclopædia/Newark Series

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2115462The New International Encyclopædia — Newark Series

NEWARK SERIES. The name given to the Triassic system in the eastern part of North America. Along the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to South Carolina there are many isolated areas of thick bedded red sandstones, conglomerates, and breccias, which throughout their extent exhibit marked uniformity of characteristics. The sedimentary rocks are accompanied by dikes and sheets of basalt indicating intense volcanic activity at the time of their formation. Fossils are rare and mostly of fresh-water or land types, the commonest being land plants and foot-prints of animals. The micaceous and feldspathic nature of the sandstone shows that it was derived from the waste of crystalline rocks. In North Carolina and Virginia the series contains workable coal seams; it also yields a good quality of building stone—the brown sandstone of Connecticut and New Jersey. See Triassic System.