Joggins Fossil Cliffs

We stopped at the Joggins fossil cliffs to see fossils. These are from well before the dinosaurs. Before even the big mammal-like reptiles like dimetrodon. They mostly only had big amphibians like this guy.

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Look at his skin and his little teeth!

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And some random bones, because most fossils unfortunately aren’t cute.

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They also have tons of weird footprints.

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They have a really weird shape.

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These ones are even weirder though. They come from a giant millipede that could grow up to 2m long. Kerri and Matt are only 1.8m long.

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Then we went out onto the actual cliffs to find our own fossils. Because the cliffs face the tides of the bay of Fundy there is a lot of erosion every day. So most of these have never been seen before. But they are almost all plants.

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Random bits of trees tucked between the rocks.

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Or tree-sized giant horsetails anyway.

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This might have been something.

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This was definitely once something, but we have no idea what.

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This was a giant tree like thing except that it’s actually related to the clubmosses.

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Which are not giant tree-like things but tiny mossy things. The past was weird.

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This was also something.

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This was the base of another giant tree-like thing. Most of the reptiles and amphibians have been found inside of these, where they had burrows.

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This might have been a thing.

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This is more giant club-moss bark-like outside thing.

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This is a maze, to demonstrate how some species go extinct and others make it. Kerri went extinct on her first try.

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But because Matt refused to participate Kerri got two tries. Because that’s how extinction works. And the second time she made it to the middle without going extinct.

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