UNESCO Welterbe

UNESCO-Welterbestätten weltweit

Mistaken Point

Kategorie
Natural
Land
Canada
Einschreibungsjahr
2016
Kriterien
(viii)
UNESCO-ID
1497

Beschreibung

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.