Most Ancient Life on Earth

They are called "thrombolites" and they were 2 km from our B&B in Flower's Cove.  They are a microbial community that we now see as rounded rock structures.  But they really look 'organic', if that word can be used for rocks.  They date as far back as 3.5 billion years ago (yes that's 3.5E9) and represent the first forms of life on this planet.  Apparently they are quite rare (the only other known site is in Australia) so it is rather amazing that this is not a nationally protected site.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Howley and Grand Lake

Image
It is sometimes much more fun to explore small local areas than to go on great journeys, especially on the last day of one's travels.  Today was such a day.  The only distance we had to travel was about 45 km from Corner Brook to Deer Lake where we had a B&B booked.  As an aside, B&Bs are the way to go in Newfoundland.  The people are friendly, the food excellent, and it's much cheaper than hotels and motels. So today we set as our goal, the little town of Howley which is on Grand Lake, the latter a huge long and skinny lake roughly 150 km long.  Why Howley you might ask?  Well the other option was some very pretty falls in a provincial park, but that would have required travelling on gravel road again which we were loathe to do after our previous Labradorean experience.  The other reason is that Howley was the site at which moose were first introduced to Newfoundland.  Moose are not indigenous to the island, but were brought here from ...
Read more

Black Flies and a Flat Tire

Image
Dry and dusty but otherwise good It was actually a good gravel road, as gravel roads go.  When we booked the car, we made sure (several times) that they knew that we were going onto the Trans-Labrador highway and that we'd be on the gravel part -- 'off-road' or 'dirt road' wasn't permitted.  No problem.  Then we bought all the insurance possible.  In L'anse au Clair we borrowed the satellite phone (for emergencies only) because there is no cell service on the road to Mary's Harbour (not that ours worked anyway, but someone else's might have). But, sadly, the Ford Fusion wasn't up to the challenge. We must have done something right in our lives because just as we pulled in to Mary's Harbour, the car started to beep indicating low tire pressure and when we stopped in front of the motel the left rear tire was well and truly flat.  At least it didn't happen in the middle of nowhere, though there were actually quite a few road crews work...
Read more

Charmed by Newfoundland

Image
Back in Gros Morne and enchanted by it.  En route to Rocky Harbour, we stopped at the Arches, a kind of mini-perce.  Newlyweds having their picture taken was an unexpected treat. . Yesterday, we took a boat tour from Western Brook Pond.  You walk in 3 km and the boat then takes you through a 'fiord'.  Fiord is in quotation marks because it isn't a true fiord, although it used to be.  Over time, the water became cut off from the sea and now it is fresh water, the pond being deep and clean. Our boat is on the right. Waterfalls and crevasses.   In the spring, the caribou climb down one side, go across the ice, and climb up to a plateau on the other side where they give birth. The pond is filled only with snow-melt and rain.  Very little water enters and only a small brook empties this 300 m deep lake (it seems that all of the freshwater lakes are all called ponds here, even if they are large). Our guide regaled us with songs...
Read more