Joggins

Joggins, Nova Scotia, had been on our radar screen since we came into Canada. We had originally planned on visiting back in July, but Hurricane Arthur kept us in New Brunswick an extra day so we had to postpone our visit until our return trip through Nova Scotia. Almost two years ago, Peter spent a few weeks at Joggins during his Watson Year.

What an extraordinary place! The magnificently exposed rock layers of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, reveal the world's most complete fossil record of life in the Carboniferous Period, or the period in which coal formed. Embedded in almost 10 miles of coastal cliffs, which are eroded twice a day by the highest tides in the world (the Bay of Fundy), rare plant and animal fossils are revealed, preserved where they once lived. And, because the erosion is continuing, more fossils are revealed on almost a daily basis. People from all over the globe continue to visit and study this special place.

Last night Frederick did research and downloaded a tides table because, in order to walk on the beach and view the cliffs up close, you have to visit during low tide. Since low tide was at 8:11 this morning, that meant an early start for us; Joggins is about 20 miles from our campground.

We arrived about 9 am and, since the Joggins Fossil Centre doesn't open until 9:30 am, we headed right for the beach and the cliffs. We climbed down to the beach and walked along taking some pictures of the cliffs, fully realizing that we didn't know what we were looking at or seeing.

I took this picture on our first tour down the beach and learned later that the two lines that you see going out to meet the waves are limestone "reefs". The cliffs that were above these "reefs" eroded more quickly and left this layer. One is lighter because there is no seaweed growing on it because it has a high alkaline content. 

At 9:30 we entered the Centre and signed up for the Explorer Tour, a two hour guided tour of the cliffs along the beach.  The tour began at 9:45 am, just time enough for us to get a good picture of the fossil beds before the tide came in and claimed the beach. 

David, our tour guide, is a third year biology student who grew up about 5 miles from the cliffs. Here he is pointing out a Lepidodendron fossil. At the Carboniferous time, Joggins was a tropical rain forest located near the equator. Together with Sigillaria, Lepidodendron were the most common tree in the Joggins swamps. Lepidodendron were tall trees reaching the height of a 10 story building. These forests, in the lush equatorial environment, decomposed and formed the coal veins for which this geologic period is known. 

David pointed out two interesting facts in this picture. First, the house, which is about a quarter mile down the beach from the Joggins Centre, used to have a large, foot-ball-field sized garden between the house and the beach. Second, the reddish colored rock above the layers on this point is glacial till, scraped off the Canadian Shield. Deposited by a glacier, this soft and loose rock erodes at a rapid rate and is one of the contributing factors that leads to the exposed layers in the Joggins cliffs.

Here David is describing a rock called "clam coal." Not coal at all, it is limestone that contains small white specs of fossilized fish bones and clam shells. 

David has his foot on a fossil tree, Lepidodendron, that was first exposed in the cliff two years ago. It continued to erode and broke free of the cliff and has been pulled down the beach by the Fundy tides. Joggins will not remove this fossil or "save" it because they do not alter the natural progression of the erosion. (The tide is getting closer.)

David is kneeling between the "twin trees". You can clearly see the large fossil the he is looking at but there is also one just to the left of his right shoulder. It was in just such a fossil tree that the oldest known reptile fossil, Hylonomus, was found, by John William Dawson, in 1860, here at Joggins. Living 75 million years before the dinosaurs, it now resides in the British Museum of Natural History. 

David is pointing out the fossilized, diamond-shaped tree bark of the Sigillaria tree.

This rock excited David because it has number of fossilized trees indicating a log jam at the time the fossils were formed. All of these fossils are just lying out on the beach. Everywhere you look you can spot a fossil of one kind or another and this diversity of fossils, and their pristine condition, is what draws scientists from all over the world.

We returned to the Joggins Fossil Centre about noon, had our lunch, and then visited the indoor exhibits.

These tall pillar-like structures are replicas of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria trees. If you look closely you can see the diamond-shped pattern on the bark.

Look closely and you can see the little lizard in the hollow tree. This shows how Dawson found Hylonomus, the oldest know reptile fossil.

At high tide, 2:01 pm, we returned to the beach to see the height of the tides. Here is the walk-way down to the beach with the final stairs completely coved by water.

Looking down the beach towards the house. No beach!

And this is the view down the beach towards the cliffs. Contrast this view with the first picture.

Leaving Joggins Fossil Cliffs, we headed to Parrsboro and the Fundy Geological Museum.

This Museum is geared more to the student which made it quite accessible for me. 

There were descriptions for each geologic period and examples of rocks or fossils from that period. For instance, this is the description of the Precambrian period showing a Stromatolite.

This is gypsum from the Early Carboniferous period.

And here is the late Carboniferous, the Joggins period, when coal was being formed. These fossils are from Joggins, and the reptile is Hylonomus.

This is a replica of the oldest dinosaur found in Nova Scotia. Fossilized remains were found in 1984 at Wasson Bluff, just down the road from Parrsboro.

These are some of the actual fossil remains - tail vertebrae; articulated hind foot; tooth; and, scapula.

More fossils of the Prosauropod - femur; articulated front foot; and, dorsal vertebrae.