The property at Joggins comprises 14.7 km (9.1 miles) of coastline along the tumultuous Bay of Fundy. This magnificent setting is home to what Sir Charles Lyell described as “the finest exposure in the world” of the rocks and fossil record of the Coal Age of Earth’s history.
Typically more than 30 m (98′) in height, the alternating grey and reddish-brown cliff-faces drop abruptly to a rocky beach composed of cobbles and boulders culled from the cliffs above. This border of cliff and beach, periodically submerged by the ocean tides, is crossed by a series of bedrock reefs. The Bay of Fundy tides, the highest in the world, withdraw twice daily to expose hundreds of metres of shoreline.
At Joggins, the highest tides in the world reveal the world famous grand exposure of the Coal Age:
What makes Joggins the best place on Earth to see what life was like more than 310 million years ago, during the late Carboniferous Period?
In the mid-1800s, Joggins inspired some of the world's leading scientists — including Sir Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin, and Canada’s own Sir William Dawson — and helped them to develop their ideas about geological processes and the history of life on Earth. Since then, scientists from around the world have carried on this tradition of research at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs.
Panorama of the Pennsylvanian rocks and Quaternary glacial till overlying the ancient wave-cut platform (Andrew MacRae photograph)
If it were not for the sweeping cliffs at Joggins, we would not know of the fossil record preserved, nor would it have played a pivotal role in the history of science. The Joggins cliffs exist because of the last Ice Age and the extreme tides of the Bay of Fundy.
During the most recent period of Earth's history, the Quaternary, a continental ice cap covered most of Canada, including Nova Scotia. The ice cover melted about 10,500 years ago. In geological terms, the ice cover vanished quickly and the Earth’s crust rebounded upward with the release of the weight (like a foam cushion rebounds after you depress it with your hand). As the crust rose, the former shoreline rose as well, becoming stranded high above the present day shoreline. The ancient shore forms the flat surface at the top of the rock cliffs. Overlaying this surface is a thick layer of clay (glacial till), which washes down over the rocks and paints them brick red.
…the action of the tides of the Bay of Fundy being so destructive as continually to undermine and sweep away the whole face of the cliffs, so that a new crop of fossils is laid open to view every three or four years.
Every 6½ hours, the powerful Fundy tides flood the Bay and then withdraw. The waves pound the cliffs relentlessly during the highest tides. Each rock brings with it the possibility of revealing a pressing of fossil life from the pages of this marvellous chapter of the big volume.