'COAL AGE GALAPAGOS': JOGGINS & THE LIONS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY GEOLOGY

The celebrated coastal section at Joggins, Nova Scotia has played a seminal role in the development of the Earth Sciences, figuring in the careers of such lions of Nineteenth Century science as Lyell, Dawson, Darwin, Logan, Marsh, Gesner, Agassiz, Wyman and Owen, among others. The story that unfolds is not only one of scientific discovery, but one of enlightnening interactions between the players that brings these personalities and their seminal debates (and personal agendas) to life.

Lyell was drawn to the fossil forests of Joggins as a case study for his principles of basin sudsidence and theory of the terrestrial origin of coals. He was delighted with his discovery with Dawson of Coal Age 'reptiles' that argued against gradual progression of fishes in the Paleozoic to reptiles of the Mesozoic. Paradoxically, Darwin drew on the completness of exposure at Joggins and the recurrence of the fossil forests to illustrate that the fossil record is inherently incomplete, a pre-emptive argument against his critics of gradual and progressive evolution. Dawson continued to argue the case for Lyell, his close friend and benefactor. Dawson advocated that the discovery of essentially modern, conservative forms as land snails, virtually unchanged over millions of years, argued against Darwinian progressive change. Historians have done Dawson disservice in simply ascribing his arguments to his religious convictions; his argument in essence was for the stasis of Ethridge and Gould's 'punctuated equilibrium', accepted well over a century later.

Against this backdrop of advancing scientific thought and positions played out a veritable soap opera of professional one-upmanship. Logan coincidentally embarked on the GSC's first project with Lyell's appearance on the scene at Joggins; Gesner sought reprimand of Lyell from Murchison, President of the Geological Society for misleading NS geologists; Owen, who earlier coined the term 'Dinosaur', beat Lyell and Dawson in naming their own discovery; while O.C. Marsh, presaging his intensely competitive nature, arrived at Joggins from Yale hot on Lyell and Dawson's trail only to be duped by a worldy traveller ready to oblige his desire for fame.