THE SEDIMENTOLOGY AND STRATIGRAPHY OF THE UPPER CRETACEOUS STRATA UNDER THE FRESH KILLS AND BROOKFIELD AVENUE LANDFILLS STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK

This study is based, in large part, on information that was obtained as a result of the hydrogeological investigations of the strata under the Fresh Kills Landfill and under the adjacent Brookfield Avenue Landfill. The author performed this study with the intent of creating very detailed descriptions of the sedimentology and stratigraphy of the Upper Cretaceous strata under the study area. Such a study would aid future investigations of the geologic and hydrogeologic conditions under Staten Island, New York. Soil cores were recovered from each boring location as consecutive 61 cm (two foot) intervals to bedrock. The lithology and other sedimentologic features were described for each soil core. The regional dip of the strata was determined to be 0.46 to 0.92 degrees to the southeast. These formations represented distributary channel sands, levees, crevasse splay sediments, marshes and upland swamps within floodplains, interdistributary bay deposits, the proximal marine environment and prodeltaic silts and clays. The great majority of the pollen observed by consultants for the investigations represented palynozones II, IIA, IIB and IIC, which is characteristic of the Lower Cretaceous Patapsco Formation. Pollen from palynozones III and IV was present only in a small number of samples from the bottom to the top of the strata. These results, by themselves, call into question the existence of the Lloyd Sand and the Raritan Clay under the study area. However, the sedimentology and stratigraphic relationships of the beds below the study area, taken together with previous descriptions in the literature of the two formations and the pollen analyses, have been interpreted by the author as indicating that the Lloyd Sand and the Raritan Clay are present. This allows for the correlation of the formations under the study area with the Raritan Formation in eastern New Jersey and Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, New York.