Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve is a

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...

and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located at the southeastern tip of

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

Avalon Peninsula The Avalon Peninsula () is a large peninsula that makes up the southeast portion of the island of Newfoundland in Canada. It is in size. The peninsula is home to 270,348 people, about 52% of the province's population, according to the 2016 Ca ...

in the

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

province of

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the populatio ...

. The reserve is home to the namesake Mistaken Point Formation, which contains one of the most diverse and well-preserved collections of

Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

in the world. Ediacaran fossils discovered at the site constitute the oldest known remnants of multicellular life on Earth.

Mistaken Point

Mistaken Point () is a small headland on the

. Historically, Mistaken Point has been mistaken for

Cape Race Cape Race is a point of land located at the southeastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland, in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Its name is thought to come from the original Portuguese name for this cape, "Raso", mean ...

due to the area's typically foggy weather conditions. Sailors making this error would turn north, thinking they had reached Cape Race Harbour, and immediately run into treacherous rocks.

History

The first fossil to be found in the area, '' Fractofusus misrai'', was discovered in June 1967 by Shiva Balak Misra, an

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n graduate student studying

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

Memorial University of Newfoundland Memorial University of Newfoundland, or MUN (), is a Public university, public research university in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, with satellite campuses in Corner Brook ...

. In the mid-1980s, the site quickly became recognized as an important location containing possibly the oldest

metazoan Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a ho ...

fossils in North America, and the most ancient deep-water marine fossils in the world. A five-kilometre stretch of coastline was first established provisionally as a reserve by the provincial government in 1984 and was permanently designated in 1987. It was later expanded in 2009 after further fossil discoveries.

Fossils

Studies have shown that the Mistaken Point biota represents the oldest

Ediacaran The Ediacaran ( ) is a geological period of the Neoproterozoic geologic era, Era that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period at 635 Million years ago, Mya to the beginning of the Cambrian Period at 538.8 Mya. It is the last ...

fossils known globally, and are the oldest large and architecturally complex organisms in Earth history. The fossil sites along the shore within the reserve were inscribed to the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

s list on July 17, 2016.

Avalonia terrane

The fossil

terrane In geology, a terrane (; in full, a tectonostratigraphic terrane) is a crust fragment formed on a tectonic plate (or broken off from it) and accreted or " sutured" to crust lying on another plate. The crustal block or fragment preserves its d ...

of Mistaken Point is the named

Avalonia Avalonia was a microcontinent in the Paleozoic era. Crustal fragments of this former microcontinent are terranes in parts of the eastern coast of North America: Atlantic Canada, and parts of the East Coast of the United States, East Coast of the ...

n terrane that is found in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

. It formed in the early

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

when

Pannotia Pannotia (from Greek: ''wikt:pan-, pan-'', "all", ''wikt:νότος, -nótos'', "south"; meaning "all southern land"), also known as the Vendian supercontinent, Greater Gondwana, and the Pan-African supercontinent, was a relatively short-lived Neo ...

broke from

Gondwana Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zea ...

(now

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

, and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

IUGS geological heritage site

In respect of Mistaken Point being 'the best example in the world of an Edicaran fossil community where ''life first got big'' and metazoan communities bloomed', the

International Union of Geological Sciences The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) is an international non-governmental organization devoted to global cooperation in the field of geology. As of 2023, it represents more than 1 million geoscientists around the world. About Fo ...

(IUGS) included the 'Ediacaran fossil site of Mistaken Point' in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022. The organisation defines an 'IUGS Geological Heritage Site' as 'a key place with geological elements and/or processes of international scientific relevance, used as a reference, and/or with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history.'

Cultural references

*Prolific Canadian rock band

The Tragically Hip The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as the Hip, was a Canadian rock band formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, consisting of vocalist Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker (known as Bobby Baker until 1994), bassis ...

include a reference to Mistaken Point in "Fly", the fourth track on their 2006 album '' World Container''. The same track also includes a reference to

Moonbeam, Ontario Moonbeam is a township in Ontario, Canada, located in the Cochrane District. It is located between the communities of Fauquier and Kitigan, 20km east of Kapuskasing along Ontario Highway 11 just south of René Brunelle Provincial Park. It is k ...

. *The wreck of the

RMS Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British ocean liner that Sinking of the Titanic, sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 as a result of striking Iceberg that struck the Titanic, an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York Ci ...

was found on 1 September 1985, slightly more than from Mistaken Point.

References

External links

*
Management Plan
Newfoundland and Labrador, Dept. of Environment and Conservation
Queens University researchDiscovery of Mistaken Point fauna
{{Newfoundland and Labrador parks First 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites Nature reserves in Newfoundland and Labrador Paleontology in Canada World Heritage Sites in Canada