Are you a geologist? Maybe you can help me out. I tried to find an explanation of what happened at Cow Head, Newfoundland, that uses regular understandable english words and not scientific garbeldy-gook. That fact that it is “an allochthonous Cambro-Ordovician sequence of deep-water limestone conglomerates” isn’t really helpful for me. Or how about this: “Successively higher black shales contain graptolites of the Levis Shale zones, and interbedded conglomerates yield successively younger Ordovician trilobites.” Oh, now I get it!
The best thing I found was this one paragraph in the national park pamphlet that seems a little on the vague side, but at least I understand the words: “Thick beds of limestone conglomerate worn by waves into rugged shelves and cliffs record the catastrophic collapse of a tropical reef.” Well, all I know is that it is a pretty cool lookin’ beach! And it’s named Cow Head because from above it is shaped like a cow head. That seems a little too straight forward.
I made this image using a polarizing filter to reduce the glare on the water and blended three exposures in post-processing to bring out the detail in the highlights and shadows.
Please click to view larger.
In case you really are a geologist, here is a closer view of the shelves.
Nice Anne. Reminds me of the tidepools at Montana de Oro State Park on the central California coast.
Thanks Russ, I’ll have to remember that for the next time I am in California. That’s funny because Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland reminded me of Yosemite!
I don’t know why, but that second shot reminds me of bacon. Maybe I’m just hungry.
Oh yeah, it does, when bacon is in a package all stuck together like 🙂
Gotta love the names of places in Newfoundland.
When I was in California last year we went through a town called “Bumpass” 🙂 I decided that was my dog’s cowboy name (cause he’s old and a little lumpy). I’m Awful Annie – just in case you were wondering what my cowboy name is. I know people wonder that all the time.
Very nice Anne. Love the processing on these.
Thanks Edith! The first one is HDR. The second one is pretty much out of the camera. I probably sharpened and added contrast, but that’s about it.
Very cool rocks, lots of great subject matter there for you Anne!
Thanks Alan. There was great subject matter there and I wasn’t really expecting it. I remember being mad at myself for only taking one lens.
I’m not a geologist, but I do a good amount of geological interp in my river guiding work. And I’m not at all familiar with the east coast. But here’s what I make of it, after a glance at Gros Morne’s web page. I’m very open to correction by anyone with better local knowledge.
Allchthonous means the rock in question is out of place, that it has moved to somewhere other than where it was deposited. It sounds like there was a big limestone reef near the ancient continent, which earthquakes and storms caused to break up and fall as rubble down into the deeper sea. So when that rubble solidified into conglomerate, it was both in a different location than the original reef, and also resting atop newly-deposited sediments younger than the original reef. So it was also out of place in the geologic sequence (older rock above younger, not the normal way of things).
It sounds like the shales they mention were also formed during the collapse events, I suppose as mud/sediment flows stirred up the all the action. “Interbedded” means that the conglomerate and shale weren’t laid down first one then the other, but each repeatedly many times, thus forming the alternating bands in your second photo.
The graptolites and trilobites are biological fossils, useful for dating the rock layers they’re found in. I believe the graptolites can also tell geologists something about the environment of the sea at the time they lived. Cambro-Ordivician is just dating; the events in question were about 490 million years ago, give or take.
Hope that helps a little! This isn’t super easy geology, and your quotes were definitely not written with much sympathy for the layman.
Wow, thanks Jackson!! I was hoping someone would come in and explain all this with regular English words, which you have done. I actually understood all that and learned something. I think the national park should have someone like you write them a brochure so visitors can understand all this scientific stuff. People would find it fascinating to understand that this had something to do with the breaking up of the ancient continent and how the old rock is on top of the newer rock.
Congratulations on the new baby, how exciting for you!