Mistaken Point

Mistaken Point

Mistaken Point

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

Surname

Mistaken Point got its name because the prevailing, regularly foggy weather here repeatedly led to fatal confusions with the Cape Race . Seafarers who made this mistake and thought they had reached Cape Race Harbor sailed north, drove straight to rocks, and failed.

Ecological Reserve

On Mistaken Point is the total reserve Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve , which the richest and best preserved pre-Cambrian fossils contains known worldwide. The site was discovered in 1967 by Shiva Balak Misra, then a student at Memorial University of Newfoundland , as part of his master's thesis when he found the fossil Fractofusus misrai . The results were published in the journal Nature in 1968 and the fossil was named after him in 2007.

The site was recognized in the 1980s as an important site with what may be the oldest multicellular animal fossils in America and the oldest deep-water fossils in the world. In 1987, a 5 km long strip of coastline was declared a nature reserve because, according to a study, this area is the oldest biota with the oldest known Ediacaric fossils, more precisely the site with the oldest complex organisms in the world.

In 2004, this area was nominated for the UNESCO World Heritage List and added to this list on July 17, 2016.

Avalonia terrane

The terran on which Mistaken Point lies was named after the terran Avalonia , which was found in Western Europe . It was formed in the early Cambrian when Pannotia broke away from Gondwana - (now South America , Africa , Antarctica , and Australia ). Due to the opening of the North Atlantic from south to north in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Era, parts of the former small continent Avalonia are located in northern Central Europe and in eastern North America (Newfoundland, New England states).

Trivia

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

The wreck of the RMS Titanic was found on September 1, 1985 about 1100 km from Mistaken Point, that would have been the shortest route to the American continent.

Web links

Commons : Mistaken Point  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).
• Queens University research
• Discovery of Mistaken Point fauna
• The Origin and Early Evolution of Animals
• Localities of the Vendian: Mistaken Point, Newfoundland

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.mistakenpointfauna.com/paper1.html Geology of Biscay Bay-Cape Race area, Avalon Peninsula | South Eastern Newfoundland Geology of Biscay Bay-Cape Race area, Avalon Peninsula, South Eastern Newfoundland SBMisra's Master Thesis. Accessed July 24, 2016
2. ↑ Anderson, MM and Misra, SB: Fossils found in pre-Cambrian Conception Group of southeastern Newfoundland . In: Nature . tape 220 , 1968, pp. 680-681 , doi : 10.1038 / 220680a0 .
3. ↑ BBC News: Rare honor for Indian geologist . BBC South Asia. September 18, 2007. Retrieved July 10, 2011.
4. ↑ Queens University Research ( Memento of the original from July 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Mistaken Point's entry in the UNESCO World Heritage List.Retrieved July 21, 2016

Coordinates: 46 ° 37 '32 "  N , 53 ° 9' 41"  W.