Nj Reefbreaks

not in nj. only beach breaks. There is one natural point, thats it.

NY has reefs

 

I know of a few "natural" points (if you can realy call them than) in NJ other than the one your thinking of.
It just takes more swell for them to go

 

i know of one... never been probably an urban legend... but i've heard of one

 

yeah havent you heard of the Great New Jersey Reef?

 

The closest thing we have to a reef are shipwrecks.....and those require giant swells.

 

I haven't heard of any reef break - it's not warm enough for reef. There is no way - only beach breaks

 

You've never walked on the beach and seen pieces of cold water reef? There is just as much cold water reef in the oceans if not more than warm water reef....

 

correct. just not in jersey. there are no natural reefs north of florida and south of Rhode island, no? subway cars dumped off the coast of MD for the fishing life not count

 

Someone might want to explain the difference between a coral reefbreak and a granite
one... I think that is the confusion here...

 

I think you're right, LegendJim... typically we talk about "rock reefs" in New England, where waves and currents have arranged reef-like structures of material exposed and/or deposited from the last ice age. All the granite in New England is rock that sort of bubbled up through the crust as magma, then cooled and solidified. Glaciation then scraped a lot of the crust off, and bulldozed up material to form some of the coastal landforms in the area. Weathering broke up much of that material into boulders, cobbles, and clastics that are deposited along beaches and just offshore in "reefs."

Other than that, there are no true reefs north of Florida and the Bahamas. You can find coral from another time period, when the ocean here was shallower and warmer.... but that was a loooong time ago.

Here, in New Jersey, we don't have reefs. But we do have clam beds and shoals, and we have the Shrewsbury Rocks and Elberon Grounds, but they're hardly reefs. The theory is that these structures are the remnants of an ancient shoreline.

 

That's not entirely accurate. From about Morehead, NC (right where the Gulf Stream and the Labrador meet--technically the Southern most part of the Mid-Atlantic) and on South we have many natural reefs (also called Live Bottom in the fishing community), they are just in deeper water (40'+). Great for fishing and diving, not surfing.
Also, not too far South from me is the Northern most Coquina reef structure in the Atlantic.

If you want to surf live reef and fire coral, you have to go tropical

 

go north for rock reefs. they are slippery

 

yea ever heard of this little state that people forget about called Rhode Island; it's full of reefs, mussel beds, and cobblestone; the only thing is our beach breaks kinda suck but they go off every now and then. Cape's only an hour and half away too

 

"Live bottom" is rock, covered with living organisms... a reef only in the same sense as the "rock reefs" of New England. In subtropical and tropical waters it may even have coral, but it's not a coral reef.

What is the Coquina Reef? Is it built up from Coquina shells?

 

This may be splitting hairs, but would that also mean any coral growing on lava ledge (like most islands) not technically be a "coral reef"?

Coquina reef is comprised of many different kinds of shells cemented together with sand stone. It's called Coquina because they are most prevalent in Florida where they are mostly comprised of coquina shells. It's actually pretty interesting how it played into Ft. Fisher's (NC) development and how it was mined in the 20's to create a road bed ultimately leading to massive erosion taking out half the land at the fort and requiring millions to be spent on man made rock bulkheads to save the rest of the historic site. This area is now where the First and Second Cove are. They used to be much better breaks before the walls were re-done in the late 80's and early 90's. Now it's just uber crowded and fickle

 

Eroc... I get it now. In fact, I recall seeing a lot of that coquina rock in Florida. Isn't that the rock that makes up a lot of the rocky parts of the coastline in South Florida?

In terms of true "coral reefs"... I think biologists make a distinction between a thin veneer of coral growing over rock, and coral that grows layer upon layer over itself for thousands of years. The substrate would be limestone under a coral reef, because it's the remains of dead hard corals themselves. The substrate under a coral-covered rock reef can be any rock, and my guess is that in your area, the corals are mostly soft corals, with perhaps some stony corals mixed in. At least that would be my guess...

 

That's exactly it. I also believe that is the substrate that holds swell so great at Reef Road

 

We have a very small rock reef in Southern NC. Only one in NC I believe. It never breaks well.