Blue Beach

For the British bridgehead during the Falklands War, codenamed Blue Beach, see San Carlos, Falkland Islands.

Blue Beach is a 2 km stretch of cliff-bordered coastline along the Avon River in the southern bight of Minas Basin, Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is best known as a globally significant fossil location for Lagerstätte of the Tournaisian period.

Geographic setting

Blue Beach is informally named. The name relates to the bluish-black colour of the cliffs. It stretches from a small creek to Avonport Station. The tidal range in this part of Minas Basin may be as high as 16 m.

The area is sparsely populated. The nearest town is Hantsport, just to the South.

Blue Beach is accessible on foot from Avonport Station or from the end of the Blue Beach Road (a private road). The tides make for dangerous conditions, because visitors can find themselves trapped easily and should familiarize themselves with the Hantsport tide table (see external references).

Geologic setting

Photograph of exposed fossil tree bases at Blue Beach, Nova Scotia

The section is exposed in rocks of the Carboniferous Maritimes Basin. The Maritimes Basin opened and filled between ca. 360 Ma and 325 Ma.[1]

The Blue Beach cliffs consist of soft shales and sandstones of the Horton Group (external reference). These erode rapidly because of erosion by the extremely high tides in combination with frequent shaving by winter ice conditions, thus creating opportunities for constant new discoveries.

Romer's gap

Main article: Romer's gap

Blue Beach is the type locality for the apparent gap in the tetrapod fossil record known as Romer's gap. Sir William Logan, the first Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, found footprints from a tetrapod in 1841.[2] It remains one of very few such outcrops in the world; the others are in Scotland.

References

Clack, J.A., 2002, An early tetrapod from "Romer's Gap". Nature, v. 418, p 72-76. doi:10.1038/nature00824

  1. ↑ Calder, J.H., 1998, The Carboniferous evolution of Nova Scotia. In: BLUNDELL, D. J. & Scor-r, A. C. (eds) Lyell: the Past is the Key to the Present. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 143, 261-302. Available in The Lyell Collection.
  2. ↑ "Blue Beach Fossil Museum". 9 May 2012. Retrieved 2012-05-09.

External links

Coordinates: 45°05′54″N 64°12′54″W / 45.09833°N 64.21500°W