Our journey has taken us to the cliffs on the Bay o
f Fundy in Nova Scotia to explore Florida’s ancient geology. At Parrsboro are remnants of the throat of what was once a volcano.
The Prosauropod dinosaurs being studied at the Fundy Geological Museum are examples of animals that survived a mass extinction over 200 million years ago.
Great seams of coal stretch into the bay at Joggins, where, if lucky, you can find tiny footprints of dinosaurs.
The Joggins Fossil Center was named as a World Heritage Site in July 2008.
Time Travels
We’re surrounded by the evidence of all the past events. Modern Florida only shows its recent geographical history. Trying to look down through the layers of past eras requires finding places where the evidence lies on the surface. I’ve travel across the United States looking for Florida. The roots of the Appalachian Mountains can be found in the pre-Pangaean gneiss from east Tennessee. Those mountains were pushed up in the collision Laurentia (North America and Eurasia) with Gondwana, (South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia). Florida was created in that impact.
Elizabeth is from Nova Scotia. That beautiful Canadian province reveals a lot of information about the Florida story. It was a pure joy to take a trip north to meet her parents once we were married. Elizabeth was a just little surprised when I pulled out a geology text book with a location map of places I wanted to go visit after I had met her parents.
At the head of the Bay of Fundy, in Parsboro, there’s evidence of a lake which existed during Florida’s building. A little further north, in Joggins, there are formations which date from the time just before Florida’s formation. We photographed the remnants of a forest in a cliff face. Trees still stood upright in a cliff face that witnessed the earliest stages of that collision of continents. We both stood there, marveling at what we saw.
The Bay of Fundy has 54 – 55 foot tides, and the tide was coming in! So we skidaddled the half mile or so back up the beach to safety.