Green Point is located 12 km north of the town of Rocky Harbour in

Gros Morne National Park Gros Morne National Park is a Canadian national park and World Heritage Site located on the west coast of Newfoundland. At , it is the second largest national park in Atlantic Canada after Torngat Mountains National Park, which has an area o ...

,Gros Morne National Park: Visitor information (2007) Retrieved August 18, 2008 from http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/nl/grosmorne/visit/visit4_e.asp#04 on the west coast of

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

. It is the home to a small summer fishing community and a drive-in campground. In 2000, Green Point was designated the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) representing the division between the

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

and the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

systems.Cooper, R. A., Nowlan, G. S., and Williams, S. H. (2001). Global Stratotype Section and Point for Base of the Ordovician System. ''Episodes'', 24(1). Retrieved August 18, 2008, from http://www.stratigraphy.org/Tremadocian.pdf

Geology

In 2000, the cliffs at Green Point were approved as the Global Stratotype Section and Point for the base of the Ordovician system by the

International Union of Geological Sciences The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) is an international non-governmental organization devoted to global cooperation in the field of geology. As of 2023, it represents more than 1 million geoscientists around the world. About Fo ...

. The boundary is a section 60m thick composed of layers of shale and limestone with overturned beds dipping 60-70 degrees to the South East. It is marked by the first appearance of ''

Iapetognathus fluctivagus ''Iapetognathus fluctivagus'' is a species of denticulate cordylodan conodonts belonging to the genus '' Iapetognathus''. It existed during the Tremadocian Age ( million years ago) of the Ordovician. It is an important index fossil in biostrat ...

'', a

conodont Conodonts, are an extinct group of marine jawless vertebrates belonging to the class Conodonta (from Ancient Greek κῶνος (''kōnos''), meaning " cone", and ὀδούς (''odoús''), meaning "tooth"). They are primarily known from their hard ...

fossil, 4.8m below the earliest known planktic

graptolite Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding organisms are known chiefly from fossils found from the Middle Cambrian ( Miaolingian, Wuliuan) through t ...

fossil, '' Rhabdinopora praeparabola''. Green Point 1

The

shales Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...

represent a 30 million year record of deep-ocean sediments laid in a base-of-slope environment in the

Iapetus Ocean The Iapetus Ocean (; ) existed in the late Neoproterozoic and early Paleozoic eras of the geologic timescale (between 600 and 400 million years ago). It was in the southern hemisphere, between the paleocontinents of Laurentia, Baltica and Avalon ...

. The

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

layers indicate periodic avalanches from the shallower waters. Portions of the same limestone avalanches that came to rest further up the coastal slopes are featured at Cow Head. There, the individual rocks in the limestone conglomerate are much larger.Burzynski, M. (1999). Gros Morne National Park. St. John's, NL: Breakwater Books. p.44 Green Point 2

Campground

There are 31 drive-in campsites at Green Point.

References

External links

Overview of Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points

Gros Morne National Park of Canada
{{DEFAULTSORT:Green Point, Newfoundland And Labrador Paleozoic paleontological sites of North America Landforms of Newfoundland and Labrador Paleontology in Canada Cambrian paleontological sites Ordovician paleontological sites

Geology

Campground

See also

References

External links