Mistaken Point

Around five hundred and sixty-five million years ago, deep-sea organisms living on a muddy sea floor off this coast were buried instantly under falling volcanic ash, which pressed them flat and preserved them where they lay. The result, exposed on tilted bedding planes at the edge of the Atlantic, is the oldest known assemblage of large complex life anywhere: thousands of fronds, discs and spindles of the Ediacaran biota, creatures that predate anything with a shell, a mouth or a skeleton and whose relationship to later animals is still argued over. UNESCO listed it in 2016. Access is only on a guided hike of about an hour each way, and visitors walk the fossil surfaces in socks to protect them.

History

The first fossil found in the area, Fractofusus misrai, was discovered in June 1967 by Shiva Balak Misra, an Indian graduate student of geology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and by the mid-1980s the site was recognised as holding possibly the oldest metazoan fossils in North America and the most ancient deep-water marine fossils in the world. The provincial government set aside a five-kilometre stretch of coast as a provisional reserve in 1984, made it permanent in 1987 and enlarged it in 2009 after further discoveries (Wikipedia, Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve).

Highlights

• The fossil surfaces - thousands of Ediacaran fronds and discs on tilted rock.
• The E surface - the densest and most famous of the bedding planes.
• The coastline - fog, cliffs and open Atlantic on the walk out.
• The interpretation centre - context at Portugal Cove South before the hike.

When to go

Late May to mid-October is the guided season, with the fossils best seen in low angled light or damp conditions when relief shows up. Hikes must be booked ahead and are capped at small numbers. Fog is frequent and can be dense enough to cancel.

What to expect

You cannot visit independently: it is guided hikes only, booked in advance, capped, and cancelled in bad weather, which on this coast is common. The walk is about three kilometres each way over open bog and rock in wind. Visitors remove their boots to walk the fossil surface. In flat light the impressions can be hard to make out at all.

Nearby

Cape Race lighthouse is nearby; the Avalon puffin colonies at Witless Bay are an hour north.

Key facts