(In the Staten Island area, the strata equivalent to the Lockatong Formation is called the Brunswick Formation.) The sill approaches 1,000 feet thick and was probably fed from an unknown stock buried beneath the basin to the west. The Palisades are the eroded cross-section of a large intrusive diabase sill that intruded between layers of sandstone and shale of the Late Triassic Stockton and Lockatong Formations. The Palisades were designated a “National Natural Landmark” being “the best example of a thick diabase sill in the United States.” The sill extends southward beyond the cliffs in Jersey City beneath the Inner Harbor, and reappear on Staten Island (see Figure 24 on the Staten Island page). The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reveals much information on the Palisades Escarpment at its website. The Palisades really do resemble a palisade wall. Imagine a frontier outpost built of hacked logs, vertically buried in the ground, with the tops whittled to spikes – the spiked logs make a wall that is seemingly impenetrable. Verazzano was merely describing the walls of forts he had seen on the remains of battle fields in Europe. I would argue that the Native Americans, at the time, did not construct palisade walls, as this was originally a Roman tradition that was passed on to the Celts, Normans, and other Northern Europeans. The cliffs were named by Verazzano’s crew as ‘Palisades,’ or “fence of stakes,” which was indicative of the forts built by local Native Americans. Most iconic are the vertical cliffs of the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, which begin in Hoboken and continue nearly to Sneden’s Landing and Piermont. High Tor Mountain is the crowning peak of the Palisades Escarpment, the network of volcanic rock cliffs and peaks that extends from Staten Island to Pomona, New York – a 30-mile stretch. Much has been said, filmed, recorded, and written about High Tor Mountain since it was first spotted by Henry Hudson’s crew (and before that, maybe Verazzano’s crew, and before that Native Americans.).

High tor state park hike