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Showing posts from October, 2011

Fossil Track Expidition in Southern NB [Part 1]

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A while back I had posted [ here ] that I had partaken in a field trip in Southern New Brunswick. Me and my buddy Craig had planned to go on a trip to Parrsboro (Friday, September 9th 2011). That morning I had received an email from my friend Matt about going on a field trip in the Cape Enrage area to investigate the cliffs over there. If we decided to go, I would have the chance to meet Dr. Randall Miller, the current curator of the New Brunswick Museum . We agreed to modify our plans and contacted Matt. After picking up Matt and some morning grub, we proceeded South towards Fundy. Our destination was a beach in the Cape Enrage area. To get there we had to drive down a short dirt road off the main road, not too far from the Cape Enrage Interpretation Center. I'm not gonna give the exact location as the site itself has yet to be checked thoroughly, and the old man that lives close by on this dirt road isn't too fond of strangers from what I'm told. Driving up to t

Amethyst Cove (Blomidon, Nova Scotia)

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This past Summer I talked to people about collecting local minerals to add to my collection, and several people mentionned Amethyst Cove. Amethyst Cove is a section of Blomidon Provincial Park, near Canning, Nova Scotia. This location is quite difficult to get at as the options to get there are slim. You can access Amethyst Cove either by boat (preferably from Parrsboro at high tide), by walking around Cape Split or from White Water (which could take half a day or more, making it quite fucking impossible), or by repelling down a cliff 300 to 400 feet high, by shaky ropes. I talked to Matt about going to Amethyst Cove someday and didn't think that I would have made it this year. Matt offered to take me there. He was very familiar with the area as he has gone there several time. We picked September 24th to go down. I left Moncton at around 6:30AM and made my way to Halifax to pick up Matt and his buddy Chris. From there we proceeded to drive North towards Wolfville on the 101. (1

Cap Maringouin (Dorchester Cape, New Brunswick)

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There is a location South of Dorchester Cape that I hadn't got the chance to check. Everytime I drove by that road in the Johnson Mills area I would notice outcrops and sandstone cliffs through gaps in the brush. My friend Matt had found some tracks and had mentionned the location in a paper he co-authored. I read and did some research on the area. The cliffs that I wanted to go check are part of the Mabou Group and the Cumberland Group, a transition between Upper and Lower Carboniferous formations, which some stretch beyond Shepody Bay all the way to Hopewell Cape (ei. Hopewell Cape Formation). The section that I would be looking at would be Grande Anse formation (Cga), from the Cumberland Group (Upper Carboniferous). South of the formation you can also find the Shepody-Beckwith Fault, seperating the Grande Anse formation and the Ward Point Member of the Boss Point formation (Cbpwp), both of the same group. South towards Johnson's Mills Typical sandstone and mudstone found

Gone Rock Fishin'!

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A few weeks ago I had mentionned to my friend Matt that I would have loved to find the elusive fossil fish in the Albert Mines area. I had gone a few times to check the area but still couldn't really find anything of interest except a few pieces of Albertite (which I'll describe later). The potential was there, but I just couldn't find the right spots. Matt knew the area well and offered to take me there to look for fish fossils and collect samples of Albertite. So we left on a Saturday morning to go hunting for rock fishies! There are two reasons why I want to dig around in some of the oldest mountains in North America. The Albert Mines area is composed of many formations made up of dark shale. This shale was the indication that an ancient body of water was here, and the presence of fish fossil does indicate it. The fish species mostly encountered when you split shale in the area is Rhadinichthys Alberti, an animal that used to swim in fresh water about 340 million years