THE GEOLOGY OF NOVA SCOTIA: ONE OF THE PREMIER FIELD TRIPS IN EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia contains some of the most geologically diverse, easily and publically accessible, and well exposed outcrops in eastern North America. Despite its proximity to major urban areas in the New England and the exceptional educational opportunities it has to offer, Nova Scotia is an under-utilized geoscience destination by American institutions. This presentation provides an overview and possible itinerary for a field course that can easily be adapted a variety of audiences, including undergraduate and graduate students, individuals seeking professional development or continuing education credits, or any combination thereof.

Topics/destinations include: cross-cutting relationships in Cambrian igneous rocks at Georgeville, Silurian flow-banded rhyolites and fossiliferous shallow marine strata near Arisaig, deformation and gold-bearing quartz veins in the turbidites of the Early Paleozoic Meguma Group, Devonian granites at Peggy’s Cove, tetrapod-bearing, terrestrial to marginal marine strata of the Mississippian Horton Bluff Formation, coal-bearing rocks of the Pennsylvanian Joggins Formation at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs UNESCO World Heritage Site, an angular unconformity between folded Mississippian sandstones and shales (deformed by Alleghenian tectonism) and overlying Triassic Fundy Group, Mississippian evaporites and salt diapirs in southern Cape Breton Island, Triassic-Jurassic zeolite-bearing basalts, dinosaur-bearing redbeds and aeolian deposits in the Parrsboro-Five Island region, and the world’s highest tides in the Bay of Fundy.

Most or all of these localities can be visited in a seven to 10 day trip; itineraries must be customized for specific travel dates because of changing tide times. Gaps in the itinerary caused by high tides can be used to visit inland exposures, the Joggins Fossil Center, Fundy Geological Museum, Museum of Natural History or many other local interpretive centers. Pre- or post-trip activities are facilitated by a wealth of traditional peer-reviewed literature, the Last Billion Years textbook, Nova Scotia Geological Highway Map, and numerous other resources published by the Atlantic Geoscience Society, Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, and Nova Scotia Museum.