UNESCO Site - Joggins Fossil Cliffs: "A place where the delicate herbage of a former world is now transmuted into stone" --Abraham Gesner (1836)
The welcome sign at the entrance ascertains that this is the best place in the world to see the biodiversity of the Coal Age...home to giant insects, towering trees and the first known reptiles. Joggins is described in Darwin's book, "The Origin of the Species" as an exceptional fossil site. In the mid-1800's Joggins inspired "some of the world's leading scientists"... Since then, scientists from around the world have carried on this tradition of research at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs."
A sign at the entrance to the stairs leading to the beach at the base of the cliffs read: You are entering an area with the world's HIGHEST tides. Please be in sight of these stairs by "11:55 AM" to ensure that you will not get trapped by the incoming tides. Rock falls are also VERY common...please stay away from the cliffs" ...and so, with hard hats on our heads, we descended the lengthy stairway.
The next sign encountered suggested that the stairs were like a time travel machine, "...taking you back 300 million years, before there were birds, mammals or even dinosaurs." The rocks and fossils date back to 'the Carboniferous'-the Age of Coal. (By comparison, Mammals didn't emerge until 65 million years ago after dinosaurs became extinct.) Before dinosaurs dominated the planet about 230 million years ago, reptiles became the largest and most complex animals on the planet...
*** The oldest known reptile was found at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs *** (it is now in the Natural History Museum - London).
Sir Charles Lyle (1871) wrote about Joggins that it is "The finest example in the world of a natural exposure in a continuous section 10 miles long...in the sea cliffs bordering a branch of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia".
Dare I say such an historical treasure is difficult to cover in only one photo...
1. The beach floor filled with fossils we could pick up & photograph
2. Lily, our guide & botany expert, pointing out a tree trunk
3..4. A home were a staff member was raised, once had a large yard that included a sport's court, now eroding away. This is a clear indication as to how fast new layers of the cliff are being exposed daily.
5, The world as it appeared in this era when Joggins was located on the Equator
6. A large tree-trunk fossil we picked up off the beach and photographed
7. Fossil pieces off the sea bed
8. Ken and me (holding a large fossil) with our friends, Alan & Susan
9. A tour member photographing a tree trunk
...and if you read all this, truly, Thank You for your interest! I feel as though I've just completed an essay for a science class!
What a great and informative collage! I have not been to this particular site and now, I so want to, thanks to your photo.
And oh... Wonderful photos. Superb sky on top left and neat shot in #3, to name only two.
And oh... Wonderful photos. Superb sky on top left and neat shot in #3, to name only two.