Monmouth County Information

Topography

The Monmouth County Planning Board staff had prepared a Natural Features Study for Monmouth County in 1975. That study revealed that Monmouth County lies within the Atlantic Coastal Plain Physiographic Province. The topography of the County is characterized by a prominent belt of hills flanked by lowlands and less prominent hills. This prominent belt of hills marks the division between the inner and outer coastal plain in Monmouth County. These hills as well as smaller groups of hills in the county are able to maintain their posture largely because they are slightly more resistant to erosion than surrounding sediments. Although no sediments in the County are consolidated in the strict sense, some strata are composed of marls and clayey sands and offer more resistance to erosion than sands do. Thus, differential erosion has formed the surface features that are seen in Monmouth County today. Also some beds or strata of cemented "ironstones" or sands occur in places and offer considerable resistance to erosion.

The most prominent landform in the County is a ridge, known as the Mount Pleasant Hills, which extends from Keyport southwest to Imlaystown and south into Ocean County. These hills also extend eastward from Keyport to the Navesink Highlands. In the Highlands the hills rise abruptly from sea level to a maximum elevation of 266 feet. From the Highlands westward the Mount Pleasant Hills range in elevation from 200 feet at Chapel Hill, Middletown, to 380 feet at Crawford Hill in Holmdel. Crawford Hill is the highest point in Monmouth County.

West-southwest of Keyport the hills decrease in elevation to about 200 feet near Morganville. West of Morganville the land is hilly but generally less than 100 feet in elevation. Southwest of Keyport the Mount Pleasant Hills become less prominent and the elevations decrease to 140 to 200 feet just west of Freehold. Near Perrineville the belt again is expressed as a series of hills which rise to nearly 360 feet in elevation. Near Clarksburg several hills range between 250 and 320 feet in elevation, however, west of Imlaystown the relief again flattens out (as it does west of Morganville) and the hills only range up to 100 feet or so in elevation.

Lowlands and plains with the exception of a group of hills that stretch from Colts Neck nearly to Eatontown characterize the remainder of the County. This group is called the Hominy Hills and elevations range from near 200 feet to 307 feet on the Naval Weapons Station Earle. NWS Earle is a military installation comprising over five percent of the land area of the County and totally outside the jurisdiction of either the State of New Jersey or the County of Monmouth

Sandy beaches and adjacent lowlands characterize the coastal portions of the County. Elevations of only 30 feet are found in western Long Branch and in Rumson, Fair Haven and Wall Township. If sea level were to rise by fifty feet some three to four miles of the eastern part of the County would fall beneath the water. Only a few isolated hills would extend above the sea between the present Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers and all of Sandy Hook, Sea Bright and the Bayshore would be covered by water.

From the above discussion it is evident that although Monmouth County has a varied landscape of lowlands, plains and hills, relatively few areas rise more than a hundred feet or so and the entire County is characterized as coastal plain in nature. A casual reader may comment that this information is superfluous, but it is extremely important when the necessity arises to undertake permitted wetland activities and develop strategies for mosquito control and tick management.

Without the assistance of the Freehold Soil Conservation District and the technical staff of the Natural Resources Conservation Service our ability to map and manage wetland habitat would be considerably more difficult. We also rely upon our partners in Monmouth County government, most notably the Health Department, Planning Board staff, Division of Information Services and the Department of Public Works &Engineering to provide various data and information to help characterize the County.

County Info Page • History • Municipalities • Drainage Patterns • Climate • Mosquito Habitat • Home Page

Monmouth County Mosquito Extermination Commission
PO Box 162 • Eatontown • New Jersey • 07724
(Tel) 732-542-3630 • (Fax) 732-542-3267
mosquitoes@co.monmouth.nj.us