 |
| Trail Map |
Looking across the water at Burnt Head Point, it is not hard to pick out the rock of the 575-million-year-old Drook Formation. In fact, all of the grey-green layered rock found along the Burnt Head Trail belong to the same silty and sandy sediments of that formation.
The name comes from the location where this formation was first identified — along the Drook River just west of Mistaken Point, on the southeast corner of Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. These sediments were deposited after a long period of glaciation. They accumulated over tens of thousands of years in what was, at the time, a deep ocean — and during an era when multicellular animals and plants were just starting to appear and evolve.
 |
| Burnt Head Point showing the Drook Formation sediments. Photo by Chris Woodworth-Lynas |
The layers — or strata — of this deep-water sediment were likely horizontal when they were first deposited. Over time, they tilted and they now dip downward toward the northwest.
In the cliff's midsection, the layers have been distorted into a Z-shaped fold. This is the result of powerful tectonic forces pushing the Drook Formation sediments over the older, pink-coloured rocks that form Burnt Head.
The pink rocks are volcanic ashes and tuffs belonging to the older Harbour Main Group, which are between 600 and 630 million years old. They are intermixed with breccia — a combination of gravel, boulders, and sand. The layering in these volcanic rocks is very disorganized, probably because of volcanic action and earlier tectonic movements. As a result, it is difficult to make out the structure of these rocks today.
 |
Burnt Head Point's geological layers: The red areas are volcanic rocks of the Harbour Main Group and the orange lines trace the layers of the Drook Formation. The large red arrows indicate the direction of force pushing upward and folding the layers of sediment. The blue arrows indicate the movement of glacier ice over the rocks and into Conception Bay about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene glaciation. Drawing courtesy of Chris Woodworth-Lynas. |
The rocks along the Burnt Head Trail are slightly older than those at Mistaken Point (now a UNESCO World Heritage site). There, the imprints or trace fossils of some of the world's oldest multicellular organisms — the Ediacaran Fauna — can be seen. They have also been found in younger layers of the Drook Formation closer to Cupids, in Spaniard's Bay, and in Upper Island Cove. So far, however, none of these unique fossils have been found in the rocks along the Burnt Head Trail. If you think you may have found any fossils, please let us know by sending a message using Contact Us on this page.