Recent Shore Deposits: Sandy Hook, Coney Island, and Rockaway Beach are pronounced coastal irregularities. South Beach and Midland Beach, Staten Island, are less so. These features are temporary for they represent initial stages in the process of coastal simplification. After the initial reefs and barriers have become land, the lagoons behind them are likely to be filled with sediment and organic matter, forming land.
The development of curved spits and beaches along the New Jersey and Long Island shores is worthy of consideration. In the vicinity of Long Branch, New Jersey, the sea cliff indicates wave erosion. The eroded débris is shifted northward by the waves and currents and piled up along the beach which terminates in Sandy Hook. The tendency of the hook to turn westward is due largely to the strong westward sweep of the winds and tides of the Atlantic Ocean. This has been going on for some time, for Sandy Hook is a compound, recurved spit. Rockaway Beach is also compound in appearance while Coney Island is simple. The same forces which drift the sediments north along the New Jersey shore are moving them westward along the Long Island coast in the vicinity of Rockawav and Coney Island. As Staten Island lies across the path of these waves, South Beach and Midland Beach represent a barrier or bar which has been built up by the waves near the line of breakers. That the prevailing direction of currents along the Midland Beach is to the southwest is indicated by the development of a spit in the vicinity of Great Kills. Beach deposition and straightening of the coast line is also in progress on the south shore of the Lower Bay in the vicinity of Port Monmouth New Jersey.
The estuaries and lagoons east of Port Monmouth are being filled with sediments derived from the land and the growth of vegetation, for, being in the lee of Sandy Hook and the barrier beaches, they are protected from strong sea waves. This is also true of Jamaica Bay, the Flushing Creek basin, Hackensack Meadows, Newark Bay, and the upper reaches of Arthur Kill. These bays and estuaries are the result of recent subsidence of the area. Thus the drowned lands, which now represent shallow sea floors, have been a factor in the placing and development of certain pronounced hooks and barrier beaches. The wind has also notably modified the deposits made by the waves and currents, for it has developed long ridges and sand dunes on the surface of the beaches.
In addition to the shore deposits which are of recent development there are rocks exposed in the New York district which have greater age and a more profound history. There are at least five series of them. While they are in close juxtaposition and have a well-established relation to each other, they are widely separated in origin by great intervals of time. Each series has had its normal period of development; the oldest, however, has suffered greater physical and chemical changes imposed upon it by mountain-making movements and other deformations which have affected it during the growth of the North American continent.