Joggins, Nova Scotia

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Joggins is a former coal mining community in Cumberland County Nova Scotia, Canada. It is famous for its record of fossils of the Pennsylvanian "Coal Age" of Earth history, approximately 310 million years ago. The dramatic coastal exposure of the Coal Age rocks, known as the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, are continually hewn and freshly exposed by the actions of the tides in the Bay of Fundy, the height of which is unsurpassed in the world. The fame of Joggins dates to the mid-nineteenth century, and the visits in 1842 and 1852 by Sir Charles Lyell, the founder of modern geology and author of Principles of Geology. In his 1871 Students' Elements of Geology, Lyell proclaimed the Joggins exposure of Coal Age rocks and fossils to be "the finest example in the world".

The fossil record at Joggins figures in Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and played a role in the Great Oxford Debate of 1860 between Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley.

Much of the fossil record at Joggins was discovered by Nova Scotian-born geologist Sir William Dawson (1820-1899), who had a close personal and working relationship with his friend and mentor Sir Charles Lyell. Much of Dawson's collection resides at the Redpath Museum of McGill University.

In 1852 Lyell and Dawson made a celebrated discovery of tetrapod (amphibian and reptile) fossils entombed within an upright tree at Coal Mine Point. Subsequent investigations by Dawson led to the discovery of one of the most important fossils in the history of science, Hylonomus lyelli, which remains the earliest (oldest) known reptile in the history of life. Hylonomus is also the oldest known amniote, a group that includes all vertebrates that have the capacity to reproduce free of water, comprising all reptiles, the extinct dinosaurs and their kin, the birds, as well as mammals. In 2002, Hylonomus lyelli was named the provincial fossil of Nova Scotia.

In 2007, a 15 km length of the coast comprising The Joggins Fossil Cliffs was nominated by Canada to UNESCO as a natural World Heritage Site.

Other notable nineteenth century geologists who worked at Joggins include Abraham Gesner, inventor of kerosene, and Sir William Logan, who measured the cliffs bed by bed during the first field season of the Geological Survey of Canada.

~~The Nova Scotia provincial fossil, Hylonomus lyelli was found here. Abraham Pineo Gesner was an early geologist interested in the area. It may soon may be classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site.~~

Joggins is located at 45°41′N, 64°26′W, in the Atlantic Standard Time zone.