Keenan's Blogiddy Blog

by Allan April - Writer, and Laura Lyall - CTV News Atlantic Videographer Published Monday, August 10, 2020 9:55PM ADT CAPE ENRAGE, N.B. -- With its spectacular views of the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick's Cape Enrage is a popular tourist destination. But some recent discoveries of the ancient variety have researchers exploring the area. Researchers from the New Brunswick Museum are searching for ancient signs of life along the base of the seaside cliffs of Cape Enrage, N.B. “Often we’re walking a beach, we might see something different,” explains Olivia King, a research associate with the New Brunswick Museum. “We may see a recent rock fall that happened, and at that point, we usually stop, take a minute, flip over a couple of rocks.” In doing so, the team has made a major discovery -- the first evidence of ancient animal life found at the location. Fossilized footprints of amphibians, reptiles, horseshoe crabs, giant...

[Personal note: The UNESCO team has been on site these past few days and I'm sure they're amazed by what they've seen. You can visit the Cliffs of Fundy Aspiring Global Geopark facebook page -- https://www.facebook.com/fundygeopark/ -- to get updates. Let's hope that they'll join the Canadian Geopark family¹!] from The Chronicle Herald - published June 25th Evaluators from UNESCO will be in Cumberland and Colchester counties in late July to evaluate the proposed Cliffs of Fundy Aspiring Geopark as a potential UNESCO Global Geopark. - Tourism Nova Scotia Maybe we should turn left at Truro once in a while. Many, if not most, Haligonians escaping the city on a summer road trip just sail through the hub city on their way north to P.E.I., New Brunswick or central Canada, or east to answer Cape Breton’s siren call. There are highway signs, though, that tease the knowing traveller west, to places like the beguili...

by Hillary Maddin (Vertebrate Paleontologist, Assistant Professor, Carleton University) - July 16, 2019 Over 150 years ago, geologist Sir William Dawson made an astounding discovery in the Joggins Cliffs, along the shores of Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy. Within the lithified remains of a giant tree-like plant were the bones of a tiny, 310 million-year-old animal. This animal was unlike any other seen thus far. It was able to venture where no vertebrate (back-boned) animal had ventured before, deep into the lycopsid forests, away from the water’s edge. This was all thanks to an evolutionary innovation: the amniotic egg. Although animals had previously ventured onto land in the earlier Devonian Period, animals with an amniotic egg — such as modern reptiles, birds and yes, even mammals — do not need to return to the water to reproduce, as modern amphibians still do. The amniotic egg is a self-contained pond, where the embryo and all its food and waste are stored surrounded by a pr...

Hello and welcome back. I've been on hiatus for quite a bit. I've been active, but not as much as I would let myself be. Dealing with things, such as mental health can take a turn and put a stop on things, such as my passion for rocks. This past while it's been an uphill trek to get back, but I'm getting back to form. One way to deal and heal is to partake in what you're passionate about, and for me its of course rocks. I have been active for a bit, but didn't find the motivation and/or energy to get back online, but this is a form of therapy that is dearly needed. The next bit I'll be posting my past travels, field work, and new things such as paleo news. Why not stay current with old things right? I've recently made some new discoveries that I'll share in future posts. Here's a preview: Stay tuned! - Keenan

On July 5th I went for a drive down Beaumont, in the Memramcook region in South-Eastern New Brunswick (Canada), to check how bad the road along the coast had eroded with time since the last time I went down there rock picking. I stopped in a few places to check on the rocks down the beach wherever I could go down, and spotted the cliffs of Dorchester Cape across the Memramcook river. Hopped in the car and proceeded to make the short few kilometers trek to the other side. Location indicator shows Dorchester Cape on the map (Google Maps) Location of the cliffs The geology of the area is mostly formed of Upper Carboniferous rocks, and the location I was at is mostly Boss Point formation. The Boss Point formation is also found in Cape Enrage, Rockport, and Upper Joggins, to name a few places. The fossils that I find at the Dorchester Cape site is mostly discombobulate plant material, with dark grey to tan sandstones with some sandy conglomerate boulders lying about. Chunks of gypsu...

October of 2014 saw a few storms that rocked the coast of Joggins pretty good. In sites like these, the day(s) after a storm is the best day to see if nature revealed more of its secrets. I invited my friend Ray to come down South to Nova Scotia with me for a little trip and boom, on the road with good company! For people that don't know what or where Joggins is by now (look up my previous posts or just search for it on the 'InTeRnEtS' via a search engine), you'll find out that this UNESCO site plays a crucial part in trying to understand our past, before the domination of giant diapsids, aka dinosaurs. This place touts having discovered some of the (if not the) oldest reptile ever found, which most remains are lodged inside fossil trees which Joggins is reknowned for. The area that we usually like to walk to is a section along the Joggins Formation, located between Lower Cove and Shulie. The formations North/North East of the targeted section, Boss Point/Lower ...