What is Mistaken Point?
Mistaken Point is a fossil site located in Newfoundland, Canada, containing some of the earliest known examples of precisely dated, well-preserved complex multicellular fossils. The fossil assemblage dates to 565 million years ago, and consists of the mysterious Ediacaran fauna – bag, spindle, bush, sea-pen (cnidarian), and frond-like organisms that lived on the deep, dark ocean floor and were finely preserved in layers of volcanic ash. As well as being the name of a type of fauna, “Ediacaran” is also a geochronological designation, as in “the Ediacaran Period”, lasting from 610 million years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian, 542 million years ago. Mistaken Point itself is at the southernmost point of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. Here, large black cliffs overlooking the Atlantic are rich in pre-Cambrian fossils. Ediacaran fossils can be found all along the southern coast of Avalon Peninsula in great numbers, but the fossils at Mistaken Point are the most famous. The point
Mistaken Point is a fossil site located in Newfoundland, Canada, containing some of the earliest known examples of precisely dated, well-preserved complex multicellular fossils. The fossil assemblage dates to 565 million years ago, and consists of the mysterious Ediacaran fauna — bag, spindle, bush, sea-pen (cnidarian), and frond-like organisms that lived on the deep, dark ocean floor and were finely preserved in layers of volcanic ash. As well as being the name of a type of fauna, “Ediacaran†is also a geochronological designation, as in “the Ediacaran Period†, lasting from 610 million years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian, 542 million years ago. Mistaken Point itself is at the southernmost point of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. Here, large black cliffs overlooking the Atlantic are rich in pre-Cambrian fossils. Ediacaran fossils can be found all along the southern coast of Avalon Peninsula in great numbers, but the fossils at Mistaken Point are the most famous. T
