Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve | |
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Location | Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada |
Nearest city | St. John's |
Coordinates | 46°37′55″N53°11′25″W / 46.63194°N 53.19028°W |
Area | 5.7 km2 (2.2 sq mi) |
Established | 1984 |
Governing body | Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Environment and Conservation |
Official name | Mistaken Point |
Type | Natural |
Criteria | viii |
Designated | 2016 (40th session) |
Reference no. | 1497 |
Region | Europe and North America |
Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve is a wilderness area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located at the southeastern tip of Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The reserve is home to the namesake Mistaken Point Formation, which contains one of the most diverse and well-preserved collections of Precambrian fossils in the world. Ediacaran fossils discovered at the site constitute the oldest known remnants of multicellular life on Earth. [2]
Mistaken Point ( 46°37′32″N53°09′41″W / 46.62556°N 53.16139°W ) is a small headland on the Avalon Peninsula. Historically, Mistaken Point has been mistaken for Cape Race due to the area's typically foggy weather conditions. Sailors making this error would turn north, thinking they had reached Cape Race Harbour, and immediately run into treacherous rocks.
The first fossil to be found in the area, Fractofusus misrai , was discovered in June 1967 by Shiva Balak Misra, an Indian graduate student studying geology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. [3] [4] In the mid-1980s, the site quickly became recognized as an important location containing possibly the oldest metazoan fossils in North America, and the most ancient deep-water marine fossils in the world. A five-kilometre stretch of coastline was first established provisionally as a reserve by the provincial government in 1984 and was permanently designated in 1987. It was later expanded in 2009 after further fossil discoveries. [2]
Studies have shown that the Mistaken Point biota represents the oldest Ediacaran fossils known globally, and are the oldest large and architecturally complex organisms in Earth history. [5] The fossil sites along the shore within the reserve were inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list on July 17, 2016. [6] [7] [8]
The fossil terrane of Mistaken Point is the named Avalonian terrane that is found in Western Europe. [9] It formed in the early Cambrian when Pannotia broke from Gondwana (now South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia).
In respect of Mistaken Point being 'the best example in the world of an Edicaran fossil community where life first got big and metazoan communities bloomed', the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) included the 'Ediacaran fossil site of Mistaken Point' in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022. The organisation defines an 'IUGS Geological Heritage Site' as 'a key place with geological elements and/or processes of international scientific relevance, used as a reference, and/or with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history.' [10]
Gros Morne National Park is a Canadian national park and World Heritage Site located on the west coast of Newfoundland. At 1,805 km2 (697 sq mi), it is the second largest national park in Atlantic Canada after Torngat Mountains National Park, which has an area of 9,700 km2 (3,700 sq mi).
The Doushantuo Formation is a geological formation in western Hubei, eastern Guizhou, southern Shaanxi, central Jiangxi, and other localities in China. It is known for the fossil Lagerstätten in Zigui in Hubei, Xiuning in Anhui, and Weng'an in Guizhou, as one of the oldest beds to contain minutely preserved microfossils, phosphatic fossils that are so characteristic they have given their name to "Doushantuo type preservation". The formation, whose deposits date back to the Early and Middle Ediacaran, is of particular interest because it covers the poorly understood interval of time between the end of the Cryogenian geological period and the more familiar fauna of the Late Ediacaran Avalon explosion, as well as due to its microfossils' potential utility as biostratigraphical markers. Taken as a whole, the Doushantuo Formation ranges from about 635 Ma at its base to about 551 Ma at its top, with the most fossiliferous layer predating by perhaps five Ma the earliest of the 'classical' Ediacaran faunas from Mistaken Point on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland, and recording conditions up to a good forty to fifty million years before the Cambrian explosion at the beginning of the Phanerozoic.
Ediacara Hills, also known as Ediacaran Hills, are a range of low hills in the northern part of the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, around 650 kilometres (400 mi) north of the state capital of Adelaide. They are within the Nilpena Ediacara National Park.
Thectardis avalonensis is a triangular-shaped member of the Ediacaran biota, dating from 574 to 565 million years ago. The organism took the form of an elongated cone with a central depression, and its apex was anchored to the substrate.
The East Coast Trail (ECT) is a long-distance coastal footpath located in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is a developed trail over 336 kilometres (209 mi) long, the creation of which began in 1994. It is made up of 25 linked wilderness paths and passes through more than 30 communities. It was named one of the best adventure destinations by National Geographic in 2012 and is extended and improved yearly.
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province in Canada. The Strait of Belle Isle separates the province into two geographical regions, Labrador and the island of Newfoundland. The province also includes over seven thousand small islands.
Articles related to the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador include:
The Ediacaranbiota is a taxonomic period classification that consists of all life forms that were present on Earth during the Ediacaran Period. These were enigmatic tubular and frond-shaped, mostly sessile, organisms. Trace fossils of these organisms have been found worldwide, and represent the earliest known complex multicellular organisms. The term "Ediacara biota" has received criticism from some scientists due to its alleged inconsistency, arbitrary exclusion of certain fossils, and inability to be precisely defined.
Fractofusus misrai is an Ediacaran fossil discovered in 1967 by S.B. Misra at Mistaken Point, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, which has since become the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve. It was named after Professor Misra in 2007. It represents a frondose rangeomorph, and its overall body plan shows glide reflection symmetry, which is typical of the clade. It is one of two described species in the genus Fractofusus, the other being Fractofusus andersoni.
Shiva Balak Misra is an Indian geologist, writer and social worker from Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh in India and is known for his contribution to the knowledge of earliest life forms on earth.
The Mistaken Point Formation is a geologic formation in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is recognized as a Lagerstätte preserving fossils dating back to the Ediacaran period. It contains a stratum dated to 565 ± 3 million years ago.
The Fermeuse Formation is a fossil-bearing Ediacaran geologic formation in Newfoundland.
The Conception Group is a geologic group in Newfoundland and Labrador. It preserves fossils dating back to the Ediacaran period. It mainly contains turbidites, but is interrupted by a glacial diamictite, and tops out with sand and siltstones. It corresponds to the lower portion of the Connecting Point Group.
The St John's Group is a fossiliferous shale-dominated Ediacaran geologic group in Newfoundland and Labrador, younger than 565 ± 3 million years ago.
The Random Formation is a rock unit in Newfoundland dating to the early Cambrian period, dominated by tidal quartz arenites deposited in a near-shore environment, but also incorporating intertidal and open-shelf deposits, including glauconitic and mud-cracked mudstones, and red channel sandstones. It was deposited quickly and is approximately 175 m (574 ft) thick. The Blue Pinion Formation was originally recognized as a separate formation, but is now interpreted as an expression of the Random Formation.
Crown Hill Formation is a late Ediacaran volcanic non-marine sedimentary formation in Newfoundland. It's topped off with a bright red conglomerate, with silt and arkose sands of similar hue too.
Parviscopa is a genus of frondose forms characterized in 2008 based on specimens from Newfoundland, Canada. Parviscopa is a member of the Ediacaran biota, and is more specifically part of the Avalon type assemblage, which is from the older part of the Ediacaran and is characterized by deep water deposits.
South Avalon-Burin oceanic barrens is a taiga ecoregion located within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. It is defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system as inhabiting the southern headlands of the Avalon and Burin Peninsulas along the southeastern coast of Newfoundland.
Trepassia is a 579 million-year-old fossil of Ediacaran rangeomorph. It was first discovered by Guy M. Narbonne, a professor at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada and colleagues in 2009. Three years later, Martin D. Brasier added additional description to Trepassia. The generic name is taken from the French word, trépassés, which translates to "those that have departed forever" and honors the Trepassey community in Newfoundland. It was originally described as Charnia wardi; it was referred under this synonym in a 2016 paper.
Frondophyllas is an extinct, monotypic animal genus in the clade Rangeomorpha. It was found at the Mistaken Point on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, Canada in 2008 by Bamforth and Anderson. The single species is Frondophyllas grandis and as of 2021 only two specimens have been discovered. Both specimens are incomplete, but one extends to one meter long, making it one of the largest Ediacaran macrofossils. The species name: grandis, comes from its size, and the genus name: Frondophyllas means "frond with leaves". The organism has a base structure with numerous fronds attached to it. It is the only Ediacaran organism to have distinct leaflets. Evidence suggests that F. grandis may have been tethered to the seafloor and used these leaflets to "filter feed", or live off nutrients provided by a current. One of the reasons fossils of this species are so rare is because it was a soft-bodied organism. It is believed that F. grandis was preserved because it was caught beneath quickly solidifying volcanic ash. Many of the Mistaken Point fossils were preserved this way.