A true trooper and welcomed company Agnes and Eric drove the ways down the South Shore. Agnes always willing to lend a hand. That damn tripod anyway. lol
565 million year old fossils. I thought I'd add some contrast.
I wanted to show some contrast. So I put the iPone from Nov.21st, 2010 next to a 565 million year old fossil at Mistaken Point. Where we were, to where we are. I Started thinking ..........man we've come a long way, and then I remembered the recent catalogue from UNICEF on our lounge table at work asking for donations of not money for people in Africa (the very rock this most likely came from) but goats, wells, huts, seeds etc. and realised we really may not have travelled that far at all! Ironically enough the writing under the map on the iPhone reads Bigdeal, not by design of course, it really is though I think.
Mistaken Point in the distance is becoming a tourist attraction on the south coast of NL. 800 and some visitors a year. It is remote. Land and Sea, a CBC program, recently did a take on it. We were actually standing on the rock as it was being viewed across NL on TV. It was afterall Nov. 21st with a -5 Celsius chill and cold western wind that day.
Precambrian rock from Avaloniam Terrane, some of the oldest rock in the world and when you see it you are mesmerised by it's presence. Sutured into it's new home from another early continent it was part of but retaining it's geological information and fossils.
Some very old fossils here. This may be a spindle as these are the most plentiful.
More to see and amazing that they were discovered in such an isolated spot in the late 1960's by a Memorial University Geologist. Tony was too young then I think. Sorry buddy had to get a dig in. Excuse the pun....I'll just stop now.
Tony I believe I would have loved to have made this trip with you as you are the geologist quite literally of our kayaking group. I would have learned so much. I had to read instead. I like that too. I wanted to show some dimension to the fossils still preserved on the rock and display how vulnerable and sensitive they must be to the environment and visitors. You have to remove footwear to step on the rock. We did this even in -5. I later found out that the elevation of the small fossil parts may not be due to the biota but to the compression of the organism over time and subsequent small eruptions from underneath. No matter, you still get an excellent view of these original organisms from so long ago. Some of the biota found here is particular to Newfoundland and never before identified.
