Victoria Bennett Beyer Photography

View Original

Green Point, Gros Morne National Park

EASTERN CANADA ROAD TRIP 2019

Another stop in Gros Morne National Park was Green Point. After just a short walk from the parking lot and down some stairs, we came to what is a very geologically significant area, adjacent to the ocean.

As you can see, the layers of rock stand vertically, but originally they formed flat as sediment settled to the ocean floor. Later, tectonic forces pushed them upright, so now, the oldest layers appear to the right and the younger layers to the left.

After her talk, the park ranger encouraged us to clamber up on the rocks and look for fossils of ocean creatures. Even Lyle was allowed, and he scrambled right up like a mountain goat, much to my surprise.

And we even found some remains of organisms that lived in the ocean hundreds of millions of years ago! We of course left our finds at the park and enjoyed showing them to other visitors who were on the hunt as well. I loved the sort of communal spirit that we all shared in our common quest after the lecture. That seems pretty far off as we enter year two of Covid-19 and socially distancing, but perhaps that is why I remember it so fondly.