Keenan's Blogiddy Blog

Someone searching the Maritimes for nice articulated plants would ususally end up being referred to known fossil localities in Nova Scotia such as Sydney, Cape Breton. The ferns and other flora found in the coal rich cliffs of Cape Breton are of exceptional quality, but what if I tell you that there's a location in New Brunswick that yields specimens that matches in quality? This province has made many contributions to the field of geology and paleontology since Mitchell and Gesner in the 1850s and the days of the Stonehammer Club. There had been a lull for decades, but with the surging in geotourism and the newly founded Stonehammer Geopark, new research has been made on old and new sites alike. One such site is located in Clifton. Rule of thumb here is that West of Bathurst the rocks get older, and younger East. The sedimentary rocks at Clifton are pretty much around the same time period, late in the Carboniferous (~310 to 300 Mya), matching paleoenvironment. Clifton, New Bru...

Not too long ago I had made a list of fossil locations I would like to visit when I felt more knowledgeable and honed some of my field work skills. I had told my friend Matt Stimson (who works in the field of palaeontology) that I thought of heading East in Cape Breton sometime in the Summer. He wanted to tag along as he's familiar with the area and wouldn't mind revisiting some of the great locales around Sydney. We decided that we'd spend 3 days in Nova Scotia. From Moncton (New Brunswick) to Sydney (Nova Scotia) is about a 5 hour drive one way. On our way to Cape Breton on Friday, we planned to take a little detour to Parrsboro and stop by to see Tim Feydak at Wasson Bluff. As I've mentioned in the past, Wasson Bluff has in its cliffs some of Canada's oldest dinosaurs, prosauropods. Many important scientific contributions were made in this small corner of the world. Tim has taken up the torch and continues the tradition by laboring under the shadow of th...