Joggins is a small town in western Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, Canada. On July 7, 2008, a 15-kilometer section of the coast known as the Joggins Fossil Cliffs was officially added to the World Heritage List.

History

The area was known to the Mi'kmaq as "Chegoggins," meaning "place of the large fish weir." French and English settlers later changed the name to Joggins. Located on the Cumberland Basin, a part of the Bay of Fundy, Joggins was a coal mining area for many years. Coal seams along the shore of the Cumberland Basin were used as early as 1686 by local Acadian settlers and by the British garrison at Annapolis Royal in 1715.

The first commercial mine was built by Major Henry Cope in 1731, but it was destroyed by the Mi'kmaq in November 1732. In 1819, Samuel McCully opened a mine, and much of the coal was sent by sea to Saint John, New Brunswick, and other places. However, the mine closed in 1821 after producing less than 600 tons of coal.

Large-scale mining began in Cumberland County under the General Mining Association, which had rights to the coal fields. Mining started at Joggins in 1847, and production increased after the Intercolonial Railway was built in the 1870s. In 1887, the Joggins Railway, a 12-mile rail line connecting mines at Joggins to the Intercolonial mainline at Maccan through River Hebert, opened.

Old coal mines are now eroding from the sea cliffs at Joggins. Recently, scientists used tree ring studies to date timber supports from the mines. Most of these supports are from the 1860s and 1870s.

Coal mining brought many workers to Joggins, including some as young as 12 years old. French-speaking Acadians returned from New Brunswick, and others came from Ireland and Scotland. The community grew quickly, with three churches, two cemeteries, a hotel, a roller ring, movie theatre, fire department, general store, post office, railway station, and school. In 1919, the community became a town because of the importance of coal mining. This status lasted until 1949, when coal mining declined, leading to population loss and economic challenges.

Coal mined at Joggins in the early 1900s was mainly used by two power plants near Maccan. These plants became outdated by the 1950s, and the mines closed after the Springhill Mining Disaster in 1958. Rail service to Joggins ended in the early 1960s.

The Joggins area was known in the 1800s and early 1900s for quarrying limestone grinding wheels, cutting lumber, fishing, and dairy farming. The Bay of Fundy also had a strong tradition of shipbuilding. In the 1800s, wooden coastal schooners were built to transport coal and mill stones to the United States. Many older homes in Joggins show the craftsmanship of shipbuilders. Stone ballast from old ships still remains on some Bay of Fundy beaches. Today, the area is known for tourism, wild blueberry farming, and food processing.

Roads and bridges to Joggins were improved in the 1980s and 1990s, making it a popular place for tourism, summer homes, and retirees. Joggins is part of the Nova Scotia Economic and Rural Development and Tourism Glooscap Trail, a scenic drive along the Bay of Fundy. Mi'kmaq legend tells of Glooscap, a mythical figure who shaped Nova Scotia and controlled the tides. The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. Visitors can walk on the ocean floor at low tide or raft on the tidal bore. The tides have created a beautiful landscape with beaches, cliffs, waterfalls, and forests. Joggins is ecologically rich, with eagles, osprey, and moose commonly seen. In the fall, birdwatchers visit the area because the marshes, originally built by Acadians in the 1600s, attract many migrating birds.

Joggins has been known for its fossils since the early 1800s. Fossils are found in exposed coal seams in cliffs overlooking the shore. These include Late Carboniferous seed ferns, lycopsids, horsetails, early tetrapods, and sea life. Daily high tides erode the cliffs, causing fossils to fall out of the coal and remain on the shore when the tide recedes. Fossils have also been found in deep mines and drilling samples hundreds of feet underground. Joggins is one of the easiest places in the world to find Pennsylvanian coal fossils. In 2008, the Joggins Fossil Cliffs were named a UNESCO natural heritage site.

The Joggins Fossil Centre is a museum built on the fossil cliffs. Exhibits include the geological history of the cliffs, the history of scientific discoveries at Joggins, and how coal mining affected the community. Guided tours of the cliffs are offered. The centre is open seasonally.

Joggins Fossil Cliffs

Joggins is famous for having a record of fossils from a rainforest ecosystem that existed about 310 million years ago. These fossils date to the Pennsylvanian period, also called the Coal Age, during the Late Carboniferous Period.

The Joggins Fossil Cliffs are a dramatic coastal area where Carboniferous (Coal Age) rocks are exposed. These cliffs are constantly shaped and revealed by the tides in the Cumberland Basin. Geologists first became interested in this area in the late 1820s. Abraham Gesner, Richard Brown, Thomas Jackson, and Francis Alger made important observations there. Later, in 1835, a group from Williams College in Massachusetts studied Joggins for educational purposes. However, Joggins became famous in the mid-1800s, especially after visits by Charles Lyell in 1842 and 1852. Lyell was a founder of modern geology and wrote Principles of Geology. In his book Elements of Geology (1871), Lyell called the Joggins exposure of Coal Age rocks and fossils "the finest example in the world."

The fossil record at Joggins is mentioned in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. It also played a role in the Great Oxford Debate of 1860 between Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley.

Much of the early work to document Joggins’ fossils was done by Sir William Dawson, a Nova Scotian geologist who worked closely with Charles Lyell. Many of Dawson’s fossils are now at the Redpath Museum of McGill University. Other notable 19th-century geologists who studied Joggins include Abraham Gesner, the inventor of kerosene, and William Logan, who measured the cliffs layer by layer for the Geological Survey of Canada.

In 1852, Lyell and Dawson discovered tetrapod fossils trapped inside an upright tree at Coal Mine Point. Later, Dawson found Hylonomus lyelli, one of the most important fossils in science history. This fossil is the earliest known sauropsid (reptile) but not the oldest known amniote, a group that includes all vertebrates that can reproduce outside of water. In 2002, Hylonomus lyelli was named Nova Scotia’s provincial fossil. Another early tetrapod fossil found at Joggins is Protoclepsydrops, an early synapsid that is even older than Hylonomus.

Other organisms found at Joggins include members of the calamites family, lepidodendron, sigillaria, ferns, early amphibians, many fish species (including evidence of coelacanths), and various arthropods.

The Joggins Fossil Cliffs are also important because they show a time when a tropical rainforest covered Nova Scotia. Later fossil evidence suggests that these rainforests collapsed quickly, leading to a mass extinction event called the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse.

Trackways made by the giant arthropod Arthropleura are preserved at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs. The tree-like lycopodiophyte Sigillaria is famously preserved in its original position at Joggins.

Recent geologic and paleontologic work

Over the past 20 years, there has been a growing interest in Joggins. Recent geological studies at the site have been led mainly by Martin Gibling, a professor of Sedimentology at Dalhousie University.

Amateur fossil collectors have also played an important role in learning about Joggins. For example, Don Reid, a longtime resident, gave all his Joggins fossils to the Joggins Fossil Institute. Many of these fossils are now displayed at the Joggins Fossil Centre.

In 2009, Melissa Grey became the first scientific curator for the Joggins Fossil Institute (JFI). The JFI continues to support research at the site and invites scientists from around the world to visit for conferences and field trips. The JFI also has a Science Advisory Committee made up of scientists from universities and government groups in the Maritime provinces. This group works as volunteers and is responsible for giving expert advice about scientific matters related to the Joggins Fossil Cliffs. Their tasks include helping to protect and manage the area, planning programs at the Joggins Fossil Centre, and addressing scientific issues connected to the site’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The committee also reports on the condition of the fossil cliffs and how well they are being preserved.

World Heritage Site

In 2007, Canada recommended a 14.7-kilometer section of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs for inclusion as a natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It was officially added to the World Heritage List on July 7, 2008.

Because it is considered the best example of "Coal Age" tropical forests and the site of the oldest known reptiles, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) included the "Coal Age Joggins Fossil Cliffs" in its collection of 100 global "geological heritage sites" in October 2022. The organization describes an IUGS Geological Heritage Site as a place with geological features or processes that are important worldwide, used as references, and that have helped advance the study of geology throughout history.

Gallery

• Sigillaria lycopod plant fossil, showing its bark impression (Canadian one-dollar coin, 26.5 mm in size, shown for scale)
• Calamites, a type of ancient horsetail plant fossil
• Beach area displaying layers of rock formed during the Carboniferous period