Joggins Fossil Cliffs
N 45° 41.641 W 064° 27.059
20T E 387029 N 5061075
The Joggins Fossil Cliffs is a site along the shore of Nova Scotia along the Bay of Fundy with an extreme abundance of fossils.
Waymark Code: WMGCH6
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Date Posted: 02/14/2013
Views: 19
From the Nova Scotia Historic Places web site:
"Joggins Fossil Cliffs is a palaeontological site along the Cumberland shore in northern Nova Scotia. It has been designated as Special Place by the Nova Scotia provincial government and as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its outstanding fossil record from the Carboniferous Age (354 to 290 million years ago)."
"The Joggins Fossil Cliffs have been termed the “Galapagos of the Coal Age” and are the world’s reference site for the “Coal Age”. The cliffs provide a complete and accessible fossil-bearing rock exposure which is the best evidence known of the iconic features of the Carboniferous period. The site contains fossils of the first reptiles in Earth history, which are the earliest representatives of the amniotes, a group of animals that includes reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals."
"The entire food chain of the Carboniferous Age is represented in the fossils found in the cliffs at Joggins. The fossil record shows that the forests were inhabited by molluscs, land snails, spiders and scorpionids, flying insects, millipedes, amphibian tetrapods and the earliest known reptiles. Many animal trackways were preserved including those of one of the largest millipede-like creatures ever recorded; measuring 2 metres long. The sea was brackish, and was populated by an extensive aquatic fauna of annelid shells, bivalves, crustaceans, horseshoe crab-like forms, sharks, ray-like fishes and several species of bony fish. The cliffs have so far revealed 195 species; this is the largest and most comprehensive sampling of life on land during this time."
"Upright fossil trees are preserved were they grew, together with animal, plant and trace fossils, they provide an environmental context and enable a complete reconstruction to be made of the extensive fossil forests that dominated land at this time. These forests are the source of most of the world’s coal deposits. The coal deposits at Joggins were first mined by French colonists during the 17th and 18th centuries. Mining continued intermittently from 1847 into 1950s. The fossil forests of Joggins provide evidence of the origin of coal."