Locality · County park: limited collecting, no sale
Big Brook Preserve
Monmouth, New Jersey, United States
Big Brook Preserve in Colts Neck, New Jersey, is the most popular Cretaceous fossil site in the northeastern United States, where the Navesink greensand yields shark teeth, Enchodus fangs, belemnites and oysters to anyone with a sieve. The county's five-per-day limit and hand-tool rule are enforced, and the material is for personal collections only. Ramanessin Brook and Poricy Park nearby have the same geology and similar rules.
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| State / province | New Jersey |
| County | Monmouth |
| Land manager / status | Monmouth County Park System |
| Access | Public; park at the Hillsdale Road or Boundary Road lots; wade the brook |
| Formations | Navesink Formation |
| What is found | Squalicorax, Scapanorhynchus, Enchodus, Belemnitella, Exogyra, mosasaur teeth |
| Coordinates (public site) | 40.3, -74.18 |
Rules
Posted rules: fossils may be collected only from the stream bed with hand trowels and sieves no larger than 18 inches; no digging into the banks; five fossils per person per day; collecting is for personal use, not resale; no collecting with power tools.
Source: https://www.monmouthcountyparks.com/page.aspx?ID=2528 (checked 2026-09-16).
Collecting rules
Elsewhere
Cite this article
Stratum Strata. "Big Brook Preserve" (Locality). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/localities/big-brook-preserve. Accessed 2026-09-21.
@misc{stratum-big-brook-preserve,
title = {Big Brook Preserve},
author = {{Stratum Strata}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/localities/big-brook-preserve}},
year = {2026},
note = {Locality article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
} Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.