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Showing posts from August, 2013

Miguasha National Park (Quebec, Canada)

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A few weeks ago I took a day trip to our neighboring province of Quebec to check out Miguasha National Park. I've always wanted to check that place since I've started researching fossil localities. Miguasha National Park is what the paleontology community sees as the world's most important paleontological fossil record of the Devonian Period. Most of the main fossil fish groups have been found here, including lobe-finned fish, the antecedent of tetrapods. The park's fossil collection has over 5000+ specimens. The importance of these cliffs and the treasures they hold has put this little community on the map, and eventually became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For me, seeing this site was important. I've been going to Joggins quite often and appreciated what information that this place was giving out to the world. I wanted to see how this mirror image of an as important site from a different time period would compare with Joggins's. Miguasha (r...

Martin Head (Southern New Brunswick)

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There's a place, called Martin Head, located just West of Fundy Park that people having been going to for a very long time. I've been talking to people and every time I mention camping sites, people would ask me: "Have you gone to Martin Head yet?". As it turned out I hadn't, so thus became an item that went up in my 'To do' list. Martin Head is a mash up of very old and not as old rocks. The 'island' which goes by the name Martin Head is made up mostly of Cambrian rocks, or even older. The basalts are mixed with some sedimentary rocks of about the same age, and some mineral deposits (I couldn't find which type of minerals occurred). The section between the island and the beach which includes some sections of the cliffs are of younger age, dating close to the Late Triassic. Click here for information about the fossilized Sand Dunes of Martin Head. These are mostly buff or reddish sandstones. There is a small section that juts out fr...

Tynemouth Creek (Gardner Creek)

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I've been tallying up a list of new sites I wanted to visit and Tynemouth Creek was on the top of that list. The Tynemouth Creek coastlines, located in Southern New Brunswick between Saint Martins and Saint John, has been the site of newly discovered trackways which had been few before. The formations of this site are about Lower Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) in age, with the occasional sliver of Pre-Cambrian rock crossing some of the local rock, and Triassic sections further East towards St. Martins. Triassic cliffs at St. Martins Driving there isn't too bad. From Moncton you drive towards Sussex, then head South through St Martins. I took the time to stop in town to check the beach and take a few pics before heading out. I wanted to go down the beach at Giffin Pond but access wasn't easy, so I turned back and made a quick stop at the light house to enjoy the scenery early in the morning. I made it back to St Martins and continued on to Bains Corner, taking a side...