Blue Beach – a locality in the Annapolis Valley – Deposits

George Burden (Canada)

On this second article on fossil areas in Nova Scotia in Canada, I’ll talk about the fascinating website of Blue Seaside. That is maybe the least recognized and most under-appreciated of the three main fossil cliffs in Nova Scotia. Most residents of the province (together with me, till a number of months in the past) are unaware of the location. It is a pity, for it’s the most accessible of the three websites within the Halifax Regional Municipality, which is the foremost inhabitants centre of Nova Scotia.

Blue Seaside is situated simply outdoors the city of Hantsport within the Annapolis Valley, simply off Freeway 101. Chris Mansky, a educated novice palaeontologist, and Sonja Wooden personal and run a non-public interpretation centre and museum. Chris takes guests on a tour of the museum and all the way down to the seaside, stating attention-grabbing fossils and sharing his, not inconsiderable, information of this necessary deposit, which dates from Romer’s Hole within the Early Carboniferous Interval (360  to 340 million years in the past). Romer’s Hole, named after palaeontologist Dr. Alfred Romer, was a interval from about 360 to 340 million yr in the past from which fossils are hardly ever discovered. It isn’t recognized for positive why that is the case, however this was additionally an important time for tetrapod growth. Together with the Kirkton Quarry in Bathgate, Scotland, Blue Seaside is without doubt one of the few websites Hole fossils are accessible.

As Chris says:

One of many first issues a customer will discover about Blue Seaside is that each third rock right here accommodates a fossil of some type. You actually can’t stroll down the seaside with out stepping on dozens.”

Just like the Joggins fossil cliffs (see Areas in Nova Scotia (Half 1): Joggins – a Carboniferous fossil forest), Blue Seaside is washed by the massive Bay of Fundy tides that always erode cliff faces and expose new fossils. Certainly, guests should be cautious of the tides, for a lot of have been trapped by quickly rising waters.

A lot of the simply seen fossils on Blue Seaside symbolize preserved mud cracks and ripples in sand or mud. The more assiduous will find lycopod fossils of various kinds.

They consist of detailed traces of the bark of these huge ancestors of today’s club mosses. The preserved rootlets of lycopsids, called Stigmaria, will often reward the avid fossil hound (Fig. 1). Calamites and seed fern fossils have also been found in the cliffs.

Perhaps of greater interest are the vertebrate fossils, because of the scarcity of specimens from a time that represents a crucial phase in their transition from water to land. A quintet of fossil fish-types await the avid palaeontologist, including huge rhizodonts, which are lobe-finned fish with large teeth intended for stabbing and holding prey. The museum at Blue Beach has a number of outstanding examples of mandibles with intact teeth from this fish. Other vertebrate fossils found here include chondricthyians (sharks), palaeoniscids (ray-finned fishes), dipnoans (lungfish) and acanthodians (bony fishes notable for the spines in front of their fins).

In November 2004, at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting, Spencer Lucas, of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, presented fossil evidence from Blue Beach of the oldest known tetrapod ichnofauna footprints ever found. These date from the Lower Mississippian (Tournaisian) epoch (360 to 345 million years ago) and place pentadactyl (that is, five-toed) tetrapods at a much earlier point in time than previously believed.

Amphibian remains tend to be scattered and are not well studied. However, one of the most impressive trace fossils found at Blue Beach was made in 1964, during unusually low tides. Dr. David Mossman and a companion were astounded to discover a trail of twenty seven, 30cm-long footprints belonging to a massive and unknown amphibian. Less massive tetrapod imprints are often found on the beach, as are other trace fossils, including worm burrows (Fig. 6) and scratches.

Overall, Blue Beach, though less heralded, is a hidden treasure awaiting visitors to Nova Scotia, who share an interest in palaeontology.

For further information on the unique paleontological and geological history of this area, and for information to help you plan a visit to Nova Scotia, you can go to the following websites: