Maritimes - Summer 2008

July 5 - 25, 2008

Day 11 - July 15: Five Islands, Springhill, Joggins, & Parrsboro: Joggins Cliffs

This was another of our favourite places on this trip. We had a great time looking for fossils and even found a piece of petrified wood that one of the guys who works there identified as being a highland tree called cordaites which grew on hill slopes and sandy banks of rivers above the swamp valley of Joggins. Trees that fell into rivers could be swept downstream and were buried and preserved in waterlogged sand. cool!

More description from the Joggins Fossil Cliffs Earthcache:

"The fossil cliffs of Joggins are a world-class palaeontological site, and they have been designated a Special Place under the Province of Nova Scotia's Special Places Protection Act. Joggins is located near the head of the Bay of Fundy, in an area where the tides are some of the world's highest (over 15 meters). This tidal action causes steady erosion of the 23 meter high cliffs.

The cliffs have yielded fossils which give an unprecedented glimpse into life during the Carboniferous Period, including: a rich variety of flora; a diverse fauna of amphibians; some exciting track ways of the Arthropleura; and, some of the world's first reptiles.

The Carboniferous Period lasted from around 350 million years ago mya) to about 280 mya. The Joggins fossil cliffs became famous in 1851, when Charles Lyell, author of The Principles of Geology, and Sir William Dawson, author of Acadian Geology and Air Breathers of the Coal Period, visited the site. Joggins was famous for fossilized tree trunks found in their original positions. Some of these trees had been hollowed out after they had fallen down and were subsequently filled with sand. When Dawson and Lyell examined one of these stumps, they noticed tiny bones. These apparently insignificant bones turned out to be one of the most important fossil finds in Nova Scotia. They were, in fact, the remains of one of the world's first reptiles, and the first evidence that land animals had lived during the "Coal Age".

The first reptiles on earth emerged 300 mya, and their remains have been found at Joggins in the hollow trunks of Lycopod trees. Dawson and Lyell discovered Hylonomous, a tiny reptile, or microsaur, as Dawson dubbed them, about 30 centimeters long. These tiny reptiles would in 100 million years evolve into the dinosaurs. One widely held theory, first proposed by Dawson, was that animals such as Hylonomous fell into hollow tree stumps which had been snapped off and the exterior filled with sediment until they were up to ground level. The unsuspecting animal would have then fallen into the hollowed tree. Once trapped, Hylonomous and others either drowned immediately, starved to death, or survived for a time scavenging on previous victims, only to be eaten by the next.

Also found by Dawson and Lyell in the tree stumps were the remains of a primitive amphibian, Dendrerpeton acadianum. This animal reached lengths of 1 meter and probably looked a lot like a large salamander.

The largest creature at Joggins was an arthropod (an invertebrate with a hard jointed exoskeleton) called Arthropleura. At nearly 2 meters long, it looked very much like an extremely large sow bug. Arthropleura may have had as many as 30 pairs of legs, and their tracks, resembling Caterpillar tractor tracks, have also been found at Joggins.

Other creatures have been found in the stumps, including the world's oldest land snails (Pupa and Zonites), and a small, articulated worm-like creature called a gally worm."

Look... a giant layer of coal... this must be from the Coal Age!