ABSTRACT
New Jersey is a transitional state between the New England-New York region and the upper South, in its physical geography as well as its cultural geography. New Jersey can be described as a sizable peninsula of land lying between the Hudson and Delaware rivers. The softer rock materials underlying the former peneplain were eroded more quickly, creating valleys such as the Great Valley of the Appalachians on the southeastern flank of the Kittatinny Ridge; the more-rugged rock, eroding much more slowly, forms the ridges and mountains. The Great Valley of the Appalachians, known in New Jersey as Kittatinny Valley, runs for a great distance to the south in the Appalachian system. The Highlands Province, which flanks the Valley and Ridge Province on the southeast, represents an extension of the rugged, crystalline rocks of the New England Upland, which crosses New Jersey, extends into eastern Pennsylvania, and finally terminates near Reading, Pennsylvania.
