Mistaken Point World Heritage Site

Official name

Mistaken Point | UNESCO

Country

Canada | Map

Continent

North America

Location

46.6350° Lat, -53.2111° Lon | Map

Code

1497

Time Zone

America/Toronto (EST, -0500)

Current Time

Category

Natural

Description

Inscribed 2016. This fossil site is located at the south-eastern tip of the island of Newfoundland, in eastern Canada. It consists of a narrow, 17 km-long strip of rugged coastal cliffs. Of deep marine origin, these cliffs date to the Ediacaran Period (580-560 million years ago), representing the oldest known assemblages of large fossils anywhere. These fossils illustrate a watershed in the history of life on earth: the appearance of large, biologically complex organisms, after almost three billion years of micro-dominated evolution.