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Gros Morne National Park

From Wikipedia

Gros Morne National Park is a world heritage site located on the west coast of Newfoundland. At 1,805 km² (697 sq mi), it is the second largest national park in Atlantic Canada (surpassed by the Torngat Mountains National Park Reserve at 9,600 km²/3,700 sq mi).

The park takes its name from Newfoundland's second-highest mountain peak (at 2,644 ft/806 m) located within the park. Its French meaning is "large mountain standing alone," or more literally "great sombre." Gros Morne is a member of the Long Range Mountains, an outlying range of the Appalachian Mountains, stretching the length of the island's west coast. It is the eroded remnants of a mountain range formed 1.2 billion years ago. "The park provides a rare example of the process of continental drift, where deep ocean crust and the rocks of the earth's mantle lie exposed." ^[1]

The Gros Morne National Park Reserve was established in 1973. It wasn't until October 1, 2005 that the National Parks Act was applied to the reserve, thereby making it a Canadian National Park.

Geology and Soils

The park's rock formations, made famous by Robert Stevens and Harold Williams, include oceanic crust and mantle rock exposed by the obduction process of plate tectonics, as well as sedimentary rock formed during the Ordovician Period, granite from the Precambrian and igneous rocks from the Palaeozoic Era.

The many soil associations mapped in the park reflect the wide variety of bedrock. The Silver Mountain soil association, dominant in the northeastern area, is a very stony sandy loam developed on glacial till overlying granite, granitic gneiss and schist. Similar rocks underlie the St. Paul's Inlet association farther west. Sedimentary rocks (including some dolomitic limestone) in the southeastern sector support the North Lake association of stony sandy loam. An association of mostly-shallow loam, the Cox's Cove, occupies a discontinuous band over shale, slate, limestone and sandstone near the coast. The coastal strip north of Bonne Bay is mostly underlain by the peaty Gull's Marsh association and the coarse Sally's Cove association except for an area of clay (Wood's Island association) around Rocky Harbour. The stony infertile soils of the ultramafic tablelands south of Bonne Bay belong to the Serpentine Range association.^[2]

Western Brook Pond

Western Brook Pond is a fresh water fjord which was carved out by glaciers during the most recent ice age from 25,000 to about 10,000 years ago. Once the glaciers melted, the land, which had been pushed down by the weight of the ice sheet, rebounded and the outlet to the sea was cut off. The 30-kilometre (19 mi) long narrow "pond" then filled in with fresh water. The water in the fjord is extremely pure and is assigned the highest purity rating available for natural bodies of water. Pissing Mare Falls, the highest waterfall in eastern North America and 199^th highest in the world,^[3] flow into Western Brook Pond.

The Tablelands, found between the towns of Trout River and Woody Point in Gros Morne National Park, look more like a barren desert than traditional Newfoundland. This is due to the ultramafic rock - peridotite - which makes up the Tablelands. It is thought to originate in the earth's mantle and was forced up from the depths during a plate collision several hundred million years ago. Peridotite lacks the usual nutrients required to sustain most plant life, hence its barren appearance. The rock is very low in calcium, very high in magnesium, and has toxic amounts of heavy metals. Peridotite is also high in iron, which accounts for its brownish colour (rusted colour). Underneath this weathered zone, the rock is really a dark green colour.

World Heritage Site

In 1987, the park was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for both its geological history and its exceptional scenery

Come and explore the park’s dense forests for rare plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. Or run your hands over ancient seafloor and preserved ocean avalanches, exposed to the land by the collision of the Earth’s tectonic plates nearly 500,000,000 years ago.

http://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/About/OurNaturalEnvironment/Wildlife.aspx

http://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/WildlifeAndNature/Default.aspx

 The Long Range Mountains

From Wikipedia

The Long Range Mountains are a series of mountains along the west coast of the Canadian island of Newfoundland. They also form the northernmost section of the Appalachian chain on the eastern seaboard of North America. In 2003 it was announced that the International Appalachian Trail would be extended through the Long Range Mountains. Around 1,200 million years ago, in the Precambrian era, the ancient core of what is now eastern North America collided slowly with another continent to form a vast mountain range. All that remains today are the deeply eroded granites and gneisses of the Long Range mountains.

In late Precambrian time, the supercontinent began to break apart. As it split, steep fractures formed and filled with molten rock from below. This magma cooled into the diabase dykes seen in the cliffs of Western Brook Pond and Ten Mile Pond.

By 570 million years ago the continent finally rifted apart, and the resulting basin became an ocean called the Iapetus Ocean. Some of the rocks of Gros Morne National Park were part of the continental margin on the western side of this new ocean, south of the Equator.

Running along the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the range comprises the following sections:

• Anguille Mountains,
• Lewis Hills,
• Tablelands (a section of the Earth's mantle exposed at the surface)
• main section of the Long Range Mountains (running northeast from the Tablelands through Gros Morne National Park, this is the only part of North America's east coast (south of Labrador) that is indented by fjords)

Link to local forecasts  http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/nl-41_metric_e.html

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