“My scariest encounter with a moose happened just around the bend,” Gros Morne National Park’s interpreter, Kris Orevec, told us.

“I was walking along the boardwalk and a mother moose had a baby in tow and I must have surprised them. The mother moose responded by charging directly at me. As you can see, there is no place to hide up here, so I quickly squeezed under the boardwalk and waited until the two moose ambled away.”

We were taking part in a hike to the Lookout Hills which is one of many guided walks that are part of the Trails, Tales and Tunes Festival which runs until May 29.

Our group of five hikers had just made it to the lookout platform at the top of the trail when Kris told us about her “moose incident.”

En route to the top we had seen a small moose and from the viewing platform had also seen four caribou on a distant snowfield.

We have done this hike on many occasions, but for the hikers from B.C., Manitoba and Ontario this was their first time up this trail.

For a special addition to this festival event on Sunday, May 22, the trip started with a boat trip across Bonne Bay from Norris Point and then an interpreted walk through the community of Woody Point.

From there we followed a short trail to the Discovery Centre, which is the start of the “normal” trail.

This is a big year for the festival since it is celebrating its fifth anniversary and “it seems to be getting larger and more popular” organizer Shirley Montague told us.

“In fact, this year we have made it several days longer than it was in the past.”

They have music workshops, interpretative walks and hikes, fancy dinners, boat tours and, of course, lots and lots of music. At times it is hard to choose what to do since there is so much to take in.

We arrived about 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 21 and had no sooner parked the car on the Norris Point waterfront than we could hear music from the Cat Stop.

We wandered through the door only to see “Ennis” singing one of our favourite songs. While we listened to “Out from St. Leonard’s” we were handed an event schedule and realized there were many other activities going on at the Bonne Bay Marine Station (BBMS) right next door as well as other locations along the Norris Point Waterfront.

We noticed our friend Elinor Benjamin on the programme. She was telling stories at the BBMS so off we went to find them.

She had local musician Daniel Payne accompanying her on his accordion and room full of children and adults listening closely to her folk tale of a princess and her upcoming marriage.

After that Mike Stevens tried to teach a room full of novice harmonica players the finer points of playing this instrument.

This is where we fell down on our pre-trip research, since it turns out Mike is a world class harmonica player from Sarnia, Ont., and I have a harmonica collecting dust in a closet somewhere in the attic. To think I might have picked up a few tips from a master. Next year, if he decides to come back, I will find my harmonica and be ready for his class.

There are also many scheduled workshops for anyone interested in the tin whistle, drumming, accordion, fiddle or step dancing so if you want some lessons by the “masters,” this festival has many opportunities.

As we checked in at the Ocean View Hotel we were told not to linger since if you wanted a seat for supper and to hear the “Singing Kitchen” at Pittman’s Family Restaurant, you needed to be there by 5 p.m. We arrived at 5:02 p.m. and there were only two places left in the entire restaurant and they were with a group that was already seated.

They graciously told us to join them and we had a fine home-cooked meal of fresh cod while 16-year-old Karissa Janes from Moncton, N.B., entertained us with her exceptional fiddle playing.

After dinner we headed for the town hall to hear an amazing lineup of performers that included Ennis, Gordon Cormier, Cherry Jam, George Woodhouse and Craig Young.

Host Snook kept everyone laughing between sets and when it ended Shirley Montague said, “I think you would have trouble matching this range and quality of music in most big cities in Canada.”

Given the final applause the audience certainly agreed. The town hall concert ended at 10 p.m. and then there were two more choices — either the blues or traditional Newfoundland music.

The next day things were not as hectic since we opted for the hike to the Lookout Hills.

But also on the schedule was brunch on the EmmCat Tour Boat, sea kayaking, a songwriter’s circle, a fiddle workshop, a Wine Master’s Feast, the Singing Kitchen and in the evening, the town hall concert followed by two choices of late night music.

The festival runs until May 29 so if you like either music and/or hiking and a host of other activities in one of the most scenic places in the world, you should definitely check this event out.

Western newfoundland geo-museum

Gros Morne Tablelands

The Tablelands are made up of peridotite, an ultramafic rock that formed deep within the earth, in this case the upper mantle. These rocks were forced up during the collision of two tectonic plates. Peridotites are rich in elements that inhibit normal plant growth making the area rather barren. The weathered reddish-brown color is due to the high iron content while fresh surfaces are dark green from the high olivine content of the rock. Photo: Tom Smith

A museum is a place where objects of artistic, historical, and scientific importance are preserved. We go to museums to learn about and study our past. The British Museum in London and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. house many past accomplishments of man and how world events, both natural and manmade, have affected the world around us.

Western Newfoundland offers similar opportunities that attract millions of visitors to these great museums of the world: a unique chance to learn about the past. The global effects of plate tectonics abound here. The associated rifting and mountain building events have formed potential oil and gas basins and displaced rocks from deep within the earth over portions of these basins. All are beautifully displayed along the scenic coast of Western Newfoundland where visitors can explore World Heritage sites, coastal fishing villages, sail along steep-sided fjords, or simply enjoy a quiet walk on the beach.

An evening view of the reddish-brown mountains called the Tablelands across Bonne Bay from the Gros Morne National Park visitor’s center. Photo: Tom Smith

Plate tectonics

Like most good museums, you must start on the ground floor; in this case Gros Morne National Park. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1987 because (from the park’s brochure), “The rocks of Gros Morne National Park and the adjacent part of Western Newfoundland provide some of the world’s best illustrations of plate tectonics, one of the most important ideas in modern science.”

An ancient continent can be seen along the cliffs of Western Brook Pond, where glaciers have exposed granites and gneisses 1.2 billion years old. Volcanic rocks exposed along the present-day shoreline give witness to a time when this super-continent Rhodinia split apart and a new ocean started to form. The limestone and quartzite exposed along the cliffs and mountain tops in the upper parts of Bonne Bay were deposited near the shoreline of this ocean. Finally, sediments that were deposited along the base of the continental shelf can be found along the northern shoreline of the park.

Deposition along this margin lasted into the early Ordovician, when forces inside the Earth changed. The ocean started to close and the tectonic events that followed created the park’s most obvious geologic feature, the Tablelands, which can be viewed from near the visitor’s center across Bonne Bay. These are some of the best exposures of mantle rocks anywhere, and also may be some of the most accessible. The rocks comprising the Tablelands were emplaced as a result of this ocean being subducted under the continental land mass and the eventual collision with Gondwana in the late Devonian. Large slices of rock, including those from the Tablelands, were scraped up and over the strata that bordered the continent of Laurentia.

Western Newfoundland lies along the Appalachian structural front (shown in red on the insert map) with the Anticosti Basin lying to the north-west as do most other Paleozoic Appalachian basins. The Seamus #1 well and key onshore locations are near the Western Newfoundland coast and along the eastern portion of the basin. Image: Newfoundland Dept. of Natural Resources

Petroleum geology

The next ‘floor’ in this outdoor museum, actually along the coast just north of Gros Morne National Park, is devoted to petroleum geology and how it may relate to plate movements. Much of what is exposed at the surface are the allochthonous rocks that were shoved out of and over parts of the early Paleozoic Anticosti Basin. These rocks give the geologist a peek at what may be encountered below this allochthonous package into the less disturbed underlying rocks.

Knowing the location of the ancient plate boundaries and continental margins yields additional insight into the petroleum potential in the Anticosti Basin. From large gas discoveries off the coast of Labrador to the prolific Arbuckle and Ellenburger formations of Oklahoma and Texas and points in between, the ancient Laurentian margin is no newcomer to large oil and gas discoveries. All of the Cambro-Ordovician basins along the Appalachian and Ouachita mountains have production. Deep exploration is just beginning in the Anticosti Basin, one of the last largely unexplored basins along this margin.

The Gros Morne National Park visitor’s center gives a good overview of the park’s exceptional geologic and biologic features. Photo: Tom Smith

Exploration History

No museum is complete without some relics from the past and the Parson’s Pond area (about 50 km north of Gros Morne National Park) is our next stop. Mr. Parsons skimmed oil from the lake that bears his name nearly two centuries ago to be used as a cure for rheumatism. Others seeking oil followed. In 1867, John Silver, using a steam powered drill, found “some oil and gas shows” in his 213m deep well. The 1890’s saw more attempts to find oil in the shallow strata around the lake when the Newfoundland Oil Company drilled a well down to 396m. Again, oil and gas shows were encountered and the company deepened the well, torpedoed (dynamited), and “pumped six barrels in a very short time”. The first 15 years produced less than 2,000 barrels. The company sold 900 barrels to St. John’s Gas and Light Company for $1,460 and subsequently went out of business in 1907.

For the next 100 years, various companies drilled more wells into the underlying shales near Parson’s Pond, encountering small amounts of oil and gas. At present, however, the first wells are being drilled through the allochthonous section and into the underlying Ordovician carbonate reservoirs. The Seamus #1 has been completed to a total depth of 3,160m and has encountered a hydrocarbon bearing zone that is to be evaluated later this summer. The drilling rig will soon start a second well in a planned three well program headed by Nalcor Energy Oil and Gas (a Crown-owned corporation) and their partners.

Who knows? The current drilling program could complete the link between the productive platform dolomites in Texas and Oklahoma to those of northeastern Canada, a link that started 600 million years ago.

Tectonic history

 

Near Corner Brook along the Middle Arm of the Bay of Islands are thick exposures of Cambro-Ordovician marine rocks. These rocks are part of the allochthonous package that was displaced over a thick succession of platform carbonates during the Acadian Orogeny. Photo: Tom Smith

It must be noted that one of the things that makes Western Newfoundland so unique geologically was its ancient location on the Laurentian margin. This margin was formed during the breakup of the super continent Rhodinia, which started about 600 million years ago (mya). Through much of the Cambrian and Ordovician periods Newfoundland formed a promontory or seaward continental projection along the Laurentian margin. The Laurentian continent included North America, Greenland, and parts of Scotland and Ireland. The margin of this continent can now be traced from offshore Labrador, Western Newfoundland, along the St. Lawrence Seaway, continuing south along the western Appalachian Mountains, west to the Ouachita Mountains of Oklahoma and Arkansas and on into south Texas. Pieces of this margin are also found in Greenland, Scotland, and Norway.

Thick sequences of platform carbonates similar to today’s Bahamas carbonate shelf were deposited along this margin in what is now called the Anticosti Basin in Western Newfoundland. Deep ocean basin sediments were deposited outward of the carbonate shelf. By early Ordovician, the dynamics driving plate movements changed and this ocean began to close. A series of tectonic events occurred that included the formation of volcanic island arcs and fore-arc basins and their eventual collisions with Laurentia until the super-continent of Gondwana arrived about 430 mya, at the start of the Acadian Orogeny that formed the Appalachian mountain range.

During the early stages of the continental collisions, huge masses of rock were transported and now lie on top of the platform carbonates. Rocks like the peridotites that form the Tablelands pictured above were thrust up from the mantle, as were sections of deep ocean and continental slope rocks. These are the allochthonous rocks (i.e. not in their original stratigraphic position) that now overlay the in-place (or autochthonous) margin carbonates, and are now the targets of recent oil and gas exploration.

The Arches are the remains of a previous glacial cave system. Intercrystalline and vuggy porosity are well developed in these dolomites and fresh surfaces yield a strong petroleum odor. Photo: Tom Smith

Amphibious craft that was used to ferry drilling equipment from the coast to drill sites at Parson’s Pond during some of the early exploration phases. Photo: Tom Smith

Larry Hicks

 

Larry Hicks, Manager of Petroleum Geoscience for the Government of Newfoundland, has 28 years of geologic experience in western Newfoundland and has been on or led hundreds of geologic field trips in the area. Photo: Tom Smith

As Larry says, “Western Newfoundland offers some of the best and most complete exposures showing the effects of plate tectonics. Outcrop exposures representative of an ocean opening and closing event are so well exposed and accessible, geologists refer to Western Newfoundland as the “Galapagos of Plate Tectonics” and in local circles as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.  

“It is no accident that earth scientists worldwide (Canadian J. Tuzo Wilson who refined plate tectonics theory, Newfoundland geologists Harold Williams and Bob Stevens who connected the geology there to a plate tectonics interpretation, and prominent plate tectonic researchers Marshall Kay and John Dewey, to name just a few) have been coming to our shores over the past forty years to view the rocks and test their theories or develop new concepts on plate tectonics.”

“Stroll along the Earth’s mantle, examine an ancient tropical shoreline or sleuth for fossils in deep water marine sediments – all just an afternoon adventure at Gros Morne National Park”.

 

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Larry Hicks and Karen Waterman for the information and great field trip and to Sharon McLennon and the Greater Corner Brook Board of Trade for making it all possible.

 

Article from GEO ExPro Magazine NO4 – 2010

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The Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (MusicNL) has announced this year’s conference will take place in Rocky Harbour in Gros Morne National Park on the province’s west coast.

The Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (MusicNL) has announced this year’s conference will take place in Rocky Harbour in Gros Morne National Park on the province’s west coast.

The conference, including seminars and workshops, showcases and a songwriters’ circle, will take place Oct. 22-24, and will culminate in an awards gala hosted by Louis and Mike MacDonald.

Awards will be handed out in 19 different categories. The full list of nominees is available online at www.musicnl.ca.

Up for female artist of the year are Amelia Curran, Teresa Ennis, Mary Barry, Irene Brider and Kellie Loder, while Jerry Stamp, Sherman Downey, Rick Lambe, Matthew Byrne and Jeff Quilty are nominated for the male artist of the year award.

The conference, including seminars and workshops, showcases and a songwriters’ circle, will take place Oct. 22-24, and will culminate in an awards gala hosted by Louis and Mike MacDonald.

Awards will be handed out in 19 different categories. The full list of nominees is available online at www.musicnl.ca.

Up for female artist of the year are Amelia Curran, Teresa Ennis, Mary Barry, Irene Brider and Kellie Loder, while Jerry Stamp, Sherman Downey, Rick Lambe, Matthew Byrne and Jeff Quilty are nominated for the male artist of the year award.

Tickets for the award show and songwriter’s circle will be available as of Sept 1 at the Ocean View Hotel 458-2730 and Fishermans Landing 458-2711. Tickets for other events at the door.

Gros Morne Mountain is an amazing hike.  I hiked Gros Morne on September 6, 2009. See photos from my trip below. If you’re interested in more information on hiking Gros Morne Mountain see Parks Canada official Website.

The Gros Morne National Park Pool will be open from (June 25-September 5, 2011). The pool is located in Rocky Harbour and is open to the public.

The Green Gardens Coastal Trail is located in Gros Morne National Park. Experience spectacular views of the sea stacks, cliffs, beaches and rock formations on this coastal trail. See an image of a Sea Stack taken from the Green Gardens trail below.

Green Gardens Trail

Sea Stack in Gros Morne National Park

Interative Tour at the Bonne Bay Marine Station

The Bonne Bay Marine Station is a great place to see, touch and learn more about the marine life in Bonne Bay.  Take a tour with an interpreter at the Marine Station and get some hands on learning with the creatures of Bonne Bay.  Here is an image of a visitor touching a Star fish.  Interactive Tours are available check the Website for details.

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