Mistaken Point

The trail head to Mistaken Point

Mistaken Point is a spiritual experience, simple as that.

Mistaken Point is a famous fossil site about 140 kms south of St. John's, Newfoundland. It has the best preserved Ediacaran fossils anywhere and they represent the oldest complex multicellular life forms yet found on the Earth. These organisms lived on the sea floor of a volcanic island archipelego 565 +/- 3 million years ago when this area lay south of the equator. The volcanic ash from an eruption settled on them preserving a picture of life at that time and it also made it possible to radiometrically date the event.

That's the short history version, there's hardly space here for a full discourse. If you want more information, just google "Edicaran fossils" or "Mistaken Point".

I had known about these fossils for over 40 years but just never made the effort to go see them. Why is difficult to explain now that I've been there. This past Saturday I finaly made the trip with wife Sherry and daughter Lisa.

Like I said, it was a spiritual experience. To actually stand on the surface of a 565 million year old sea floor and see the life forms that existed then was a bit overwhelming really. These weren't animals because they didn't have a mouth, digestive tract or anus but we were looking at the start of complex life forms taking hold on our planet.

The excitement begins to build

There's a well defined trail out to the coast where Mistaken Point is located, just over the heads of the group. Richard Thomas is the Ecological Reserve Manager and we were lucky to have him lead the guided tour, though he did set a bit of a torrid walking pace for some! We were also lucky to have a small group as the day before Richard said he had a group of 28. Access to the fossil beds is now only possible by guided tour. The tour is free and you can get information by calling 709-438-1100.

"Sacred" beds

We walked up over a small rise and we were there, within minutes of walking on the fabled fossils of Mistaken Point. Before we were allowed to walk onto the bed we had to take off our walking shoes and put on cloth booties that Richard provided. The fossil impressions are beyond price; they cannot be replaced so every precaution to prevent any wear on the fossils is necessary.

Bradgatia

The fanlike impression in the bottom right quadrant of the picture is called a Bradgatia. What it was all about is unknown. This fossil also occurs in Ediacaran beds in Charnwood Forest in central England.

A "pectinate" fossil

Another "un-named" fossil (the crescent shaped) that the internet calls a "pectinate" fossil. What it was is subject to a lot of speculation and maybe we'll never know. It would be nice to know but one thing we do know is that none of these Ediacaran fossils survived much past the Ediacaran - Cambrian boundary. It didn't matter to me that none of these life forms led to us, there's still a bit of a genesis moment on display here.

A disk among the spindles and feather dusters

There's a defined disk at the top of the picture and I think it was a holdfast for the organism laying below it. The organism was attached to the sea floor by the holdfast and floated in the current. These organisms couldn't move and its thought that they collected nourishment by collecting food as it drifted by. When the volcanic ash settled on the organism it caused it to collapse on the sea floor.

Spindles and feather dusters

These un-named organisms resemble spindles and feather dusters. They were most of the fossil impressions in the beds we visited. These fossils have much more fine detail than other similar sites because here the fossils were preserved on siltstones as opposed to sandstones.

An application to be designated a World Heritage Site will be completed in the near future. If anything deserves to be so-named, this is the place.