Mistaken Point, Newfoundland and Labrador

Mistaken Point

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Location of Mistaken Point in Newfoundland

Mistaken Point is a small Canadian headland on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Name

Mistaken Point takes its name from the deadly results of mistaking it for Cape Race, in the area's typically foggy weather. Sailors who would make this mistake would turn north, thinking they had reached Cape Race Harbor, and immediately run into treacherous rocks.

Ecological Reserve

It is the site of the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve, which contains one of the most diverse and well-preserved collections of Precambrian fossils known. The site was first discovered in 1967 by S.B. Misra. The site became quickly recognized in the mid 1980's as an important find containing probably the oldest metazoan fossils in North America and the most ancient deep-water marine fossils in the world. In 1987, a 5 kilometer stretch of coastline was declared an ecological reserve. Studies have shown that the Mistaken Point biota represents the oldest Ediacaran fossils known anywhere, in fact the oldest, largest and architecturally complex organisms in Earth history.

Avalonia terrane

The fossil terrane of Mistaken Point is the named Avalonian terrane that is found in Western Europe. It formed in the early Cambrian when Pannotia broke from northeastern Gondwana-(now northeastern North America).

Trivia

Prolific Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip include a reference to Mistaken Point in "Fly", the fourth track on their 2006 album World Container. The same track also includes a reference to Moonbeam, Ontario.

External links

• Queens University research
• Discovery of Mistaken Point fauna
• The Origin and Early Evolution of Animals
• Localities of the Vendian: Mistaken Point, Newfoundland