Alright guys, so today we're back in Nova Scotia once again, and we're going to be
exploring Joggins Fossil Cliffs. It's been one of those places where it's kind
of been on my list for years, never actually taking the time to come here, so
today that's what we're going to be doing. We're camping in the area which is nice,
turns out to be a really good day, was supposed to be raining all weekend, but
so far, so good.
So this is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
I'm not sure the exact details of it quite yet, but I know there are some unique fossils that
are found only in this particular area. So we're going to go check those out.
We're about to do a 30-minute guided beach tour (that's included) so it's $10.50 a person,
which includes a tour and access to the museum as well.
It was a windy day. I apologize for the wind noise - I did my best to position myself away from it.
And then if you look out to the beach itself, you'll notice there are some wooden planks sitting everywhere.
That's remnants of old Joggins warf where ships would come and dock when the tides were in.
So right now is not the best time at all, they would likely be stranded here.
Ships would dock for about an hour or so, and then we would fill them up with as much coal as possible,
to send them to other places in Canada and sometimes the States.
So about 100 years ago, these cliffs extended out a good 25-50 meters from where they are today.
And that kind of puts things into perspective of how quickly things are eroding around here.
And that's why you don't want to be building houses on the edges on the cliffs,
because they don't last very long,
and if you ask a Geologist, we'll tell you not to do it. It's not a smart idea.
So what I have to show you today is this guy here:
This is called a calamities.
It's considered a living fossil.
Since today we have them as horse tails,
if you know that weed plant at all.
They're little guys that grow to be maybe my knee height.
And have a similar structure to bamboo,
and have nice horizontal and vertical lines.
These guys, very similar,
there are the weed of the Carboniferous.
except they could grow to be 10 meters tall, and a decent size around.
They can be thicker than this one here.
So the fossils we get here in Joggins are in the form of cast and mold.
So what happens, is during flooding, sediment is brought in and kind of fills in all the hollow spaces of plant material.
So once the fossil is buried and the sediment is filled in,
the pressure causes it to solidify,
and turns into a sandstone.
So this guy here used to sit in the cliffs at some point.
But due to erosion, it eventually broke down and fell onto the beach.
Since they are weeds, when you find one, you typically find a bunch.
So there's a nice, slightly longer one there,
A couple of smaller one's right beside it.
I like this small section down here
because we have a cast, and then right above it is a spot where more would have sat,
but it's broken down, and now you just get the impressions.
And then we also have a couple of small one's right over there.
And they are curved very nicely.
This is by far the most common fossil we have here at Joggins.
It's actually a fossilized tree root.
Scientific name for them are actually Stigmaria, but we will just refer to it as a tree root today.
So just behind me in this cliff face, we have a nice network of roots.
Not many of the nice big chunk of roots are exposed right now,
they have kind of broken down,
But if you look closely, there are little fine lines that are splattered all throughout this cliff face.
And that is the frilly hairs that have been preserved nicely.
So it's amazing how something so delicate and fine can still be left behind after 300 million years.
And where you find lots of roots, you assume there might be a tree trunk near by.
So maybe at some point there was one out here where we're standing, and it's now long gone,
or there is something further back in the cliff face and we have to wait a few years to find it.
The layers appear to be tilting in the same direction.
It's especially apartment over there where the cliff turns a bit and you can all the actual layers stacked on top.
That actually lets us walk up and down through time.
So as we continue in this direction, we're going into younger layers and closer to present day.
Back in that direction is further in the past with older layers.
It works out really nicely where every kilometer you walk along the cliff face is about 1 million years in time.
Which is wild. You can 't do that in many other places in the world.
So what happened to cause the tilt is all these sedimentary layers were originally deposited
at flat/horizontal - stacked on top of each other.
They are deposited on top of a very soft salt layer.
So as many layers build up, pressure eventually caused the salt to collapse.
So if you think of this binder as one of the layers. the salt flats in the center,
The ends squeezed out, almost like toothpaste,
built up in this end, and this end here,
and eventually caused all these sedimentary layers to rotate and form a nice bowl shape like this.
So the 15 kilometers we have here in Joggins, are just present on one side of this bowl shape.
So everything is tilting this direction.
In theory, at one point you could follow any one of these layers out under the bay and up the other side,
They would all be tilting the opposite direction, sadly we're all a couple of million years way too young.
So we can't see it anymore.
It been eroded away, covered by the water, and covered by younger rocks.
But it would have been a sight to see at some point!
If only we were older.
And the last fossil I have to tell you about today, in my opinion is the most impressive one's we get there in Joggins,
and that's the fossilized tree trunks.
If you look just above me you'll see the column shape looking rock with some lines on the outside.
And that is a tree trunk.
So that guys there is a Sidularia.
So it's just one of the kinds from the Carboniferous.
But we do get a couple different kinds of species in the area.
That's one of the more common one's we get though.
So these trees were slightly different than ones we know today. Inside was really soft
and squishy, we didn't have the rings of bark extending outward, and so when these
trees would died, the insides would decompose and rot away very quickly, and
we left just hollow trees, and the outer bark could survive for a long time
after the initial death which allowed the trees be preserved in huge chunks,
and really nicely where they stood, but this led to the discovery of the world's
first known reptile. So this here is an artistic representation of
Colomonus, and his remains were discovered in the base of one of these trees in the
19th century by some English geologists. So scientists were able to determine that this is one
of the oldest reptiles just based on the timing of our rocks, by the Carboniferous period which is slightly older than other areas.
The remains relate closer to reptiles vs. amphibians. Just with their jaw bones, teeth and pelvic sections
which would have housed eggs. So because that, you can think of this guy
as the grandmother or grandfather to all future of reptiles, mammals, birds
eventually us and our first known transition onto land.
Now there could be something order out there, and there probably is, but we haven't discovered
any remains for it yet, so until then, we're going to keep this claim to fame, especially
where this guy has only been discovered a handful times here in Joggins and he's
actually the provincial fossil for all of Nova Scotia.
Alright, so now that we have finished
the tour we're going to take a just a little walk on the beach I think, try and
see if we can find any fossils ourselves, bring out our inner geologist.
Which for me is a very small part of my inner
Yeah, we'll see what we can find!
It's turned into be a lovely day, the fog has cleared as you can tell, so that is nice.
Fossil time!
It's very light.
Like charcoal.
Yeah, looks like charcoal.
You should like Donald Trump!
Yeah the coal.
Make America great again!
Look Akane, Adam found something.
Now all we need are the pandas.
Japanda's
Japanda - we don't have.
It looks really cool doesn't it?
You just follow it all the way.
That's really weird.
Where do you think it will take us?
Japan?
I don't know. I think China is on the other side of...everywhere.
Adam, you're so good at this.
Look at the pizza things!
Where is it?
Ah! Piece of pizza.
I wish I could find something cool.
I found a strip of the little lines there.
But that's about it.
So far, nothing.
I found some pottery.
Oh man! Adam's finding...
Ancient civilization remains, and I'm over here looking at plain old rocks!
Guess Catherine doesn't want to play with the rest of the group anymore.
Hmm hmm
That's rude.
Bring her here, and was does she do? She ditches us.
Catherine! Why did you ditch us?
State your case. We're going to present it before a judge.
And you will be tried to the fullest extent of the law.
Go!
He doesn't like the rocks.
You don't like the little barnacles?
Umm hmm
Neither do people who own boats.
Quite a bit of seaweed on there, isn't it?
Do I want some? No, I don't want any.
But you like sushi.
Sushi, yes.
That seaweed, no.
I think I told you, but...ohhh! Don't do that way!
That was close.
My dad used to go out and collect
seaweed and then dry it on top of our shed roof to make dulce.
I don't know, it's a certain type of seaweed I'm sure,
but that's all you do, is you dry it out. Anyway, his workshop roof was always
covered with dulce because he would make bags and bags and bags of it,
and he wold give it to my grandmother,
and other people who liked it,
because myself and my mom
didn't like it. Well, it's not that I can say that I don't like it,
It's because I was such a picky kid, that I would never try it.
I'm still picky. I am less picky than what I was,
but I'm still very picky.
But anyway, that's...so I don't know if I like it or don't like it.
But it was always a part of our life being around this area and stuff,
dad bringing home seaweed and drying it.
Have either of you had dulce?
Dolphins?
Dulce!
Dul-ce
What's that?
It's dry seaweed, pretty much.
Nope.
And you just eat it.
So now that we are finished here on the beach,
we're going to pop in and see what the museum section of the site is like.
Coming down to the beach was cool - we saw some fossils and stuff,
I don't think it was a half an hour tour,
unless my timing is quite off.
That seemed like a 10-15 minute tour.
You know, whatever.
Alright guys, well we finished up here at Joggins. Honestly, wasn't as good as I
expecting, the museum it's fine, it's a little small. I mean they had some
impressive fossils on display, but not to the caliber I was expecting, and I
mean the tour was good, like the information was good, but it did seem
short to me, but hey you know, it's a good day out, it's a good day
hanging out with some wonderful people. So it's a good day to share a video with you guys.
So anyway guys, if you liked the video, let me know, hit the thumbs up.
And of course, if you're new to the channel, welcome, and I hope you subscribe.
Anyway guys, hope to see you all in the next video.
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Filmed July 2018