Miguasha

After a string of perfect weather days, this morning dawned foggy and with a promise of rain. We finished hitching up just as a light rain began to fall and began our journey up the Gaspe Peninsula.

First stop was at the Visitor Center in Pointe-a-la-Croix, Quebec, on the other side of the river from Campbellton, N.B., where we picked up a much need detailed map of Quebec. Remember the green suspension bridge that you could see from the top of Sugarloaf - the obvious connect between Campbellton and  Quebec? For some unknown reason our GPS sent us 15 miles up-river to another bridge and we then had to travel another 15 miles to get back to Point-a-la-Croix. That was 30 miles that we didn't need to add to our travels. But we didn't have a map detailed enough to show us the route and we depended on our GPS, " Mary Beth". I'm not quite sure what the significance of the little house at the Visitor's Center is. It was starting to rain and we didn't take the time to explore further. It's a nice picture, though.

When we were at the summit of Sugarloaf talking to Denis, he told us about a museum, on the way out to the Gaspe Peninsula, that had some interesting fossils. He didn't remember the name but the woman at theVisitor Center told us it was Miguasha Provincial Park about twenty miles down the road. She gave us directions and off we went. It turned out to be a highlight of our trip.

Miguasha (Mi'kmaq for "red cliffs') Provincial Park is considered to be the world's most outstanding illustration of the Devonian period, known as the "Age of Fishes". As the Joggins site (see Joggins blog, August 27) is the most representative of the Carboniferous Period, Miguasha is the best for the Devonian. Dating from 370 million years ago, the Upper Devonian Escuminac Formation at Miguasha contains six of the eight fossil fish groups associated with this period. Its significance stems from the discovery of the highest number and best-preserved fossil specimens of the lobe-finned fishes that gave rise to the first four-legged, air-breating, terrestrial vertebrates - the tetrapods (four footed) - of which we are one.

The fish fossils at Miguasha are unique among sites of the same age throughout the world and is distinguished by invertebrates, plants and spore fossils which have allowed a picture of the Devonian ecosystem to be constructed. The fossils are of such high quality that soft body parts represented in gill imprints, digestive traces and cartilaginous elements of skeleton can be studied. 

One particular fossil, nicknamed the "Prince of Miguasha", is the Eusthenopteron foordi, which share many characteristics with the tetrapods, and gave rise to the modern conception of evolution from fish to terrestrial tetrapod vertebrates. The Prince is their prize fossil and a Swedish scientist, Erik Jarvik, spent 40 years of his life studying the skull and part of the backbone of this tetrapod-like fish. Then, in 2013, they found a complete fossil of a fish in the same group, Elpistostege watsoni, which they have nicknamed the "King of Miguasha". It is currently being studied and the suggestion is that this species may be the nearest fish from the tetrapods. Both of the fish in this group have bones in their fins that are of the same composition as our bones and also have lungs.

This is Donna, our tour guide through the Museum, showing us the techniques they use to separate the fossils from the rocks using dentist tools.

Donna explaining the Phylogenetic Tree of Vertebrates. The fish in blue are fish that they have fossil representations of.

After our guided tour of the Museum inside, we all donned our rain gear and Donna led a group outside and down to the beach where the cliffs are. This is looking north.

And this is looking south.

Here is Donna at the cliffs describing the layers and the way the fossils are found. Unfortunately, the presentation was in French, so after about ten minutes, Frederick and I, and two other couples that were English-speaking, returned to the Museum to spend some more time on our own exploring the wonderful exhibits.

This is the way the earth looked 390 million years ago when the American and European continents merged to form Continent Euramerica. The collusion of the continental plates gave birth to the Appalachians. The black line through the center is the equator and you can just make out the red arrow the points to Miguasha on this ancient continent. 

The majority of the exhibits were from the Devonian period, but the museum also featured the evolution of life through the following periods. Remember this little fellow from Joggins (Joggins blog on August 27)? Here he is again at Miguasha as the representative of the oldest known reptile fossil, hylonomus, found by John Dawson in 1860 at Joggins.

Here's the picture from the Joggins blog. This fossil reptile was found in a fossil tree.

Unfortunately we had to leave after about two and a half-hours; we would have liked to stay longer but we had to travel to Perce, at the end of the Gaspe Peninsula, and it was raining. We arrived at Perce and found this great campground right on the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in sight of the Perce Rock, one of the most recognized natural attractions in Canada. 

The view out our bedroom window of the Perce Rock.

And just to the right is Ile Bonaventure Provincial Park. As you can see, the weather is not clear, but tomorrow should bring bright sunshine, so more about these feature tomorrow.