Wasson Bluff
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Wasson Bluff (also known as Wasson's Bluff) is the name applied to a series of imposing cliff faces on the north shore of the Minas Basin about 5 miles (8.0 km) east of the town of Parrsboro, Nova Scotia.[1] The cliffs, which stretch approximately one mile (1.6 km) from Wasson Brook in the east, to Swan Creek in the west, consist of 200-million-year-old rocks that have yielded a wide array of fossils including more than 100,000 bones from Canada's oldest-known dinosaurs as well as the smallest dinosaur tracks ever found.[2][3] The fossils date from a critical time in the evolution of life, the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic geological periods, when mass extinctions led not only to the dominance of the dinosaurs, but also to the evolution of groups of vertebrates, such as fish, crocodiles, frogs and mammals, whose descendants are still alive today.[1] The abrasive action of the tides, considered to be the world's highest, constantly exposes fossils on the cliff faces, shores and seabed.[3][4][5]
Wasson Bluff | |
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Location | Canada |
Coordinates | 45°23′30″N 64°14′32″W |
In 1990, Paul E. Olsen, one of the paleontologists who has conducted extensive fossil excavations at Wasson Bluff wrote: "Every time I stand before these cliffs, I feel dwarfed by the immensity of time."[1]