SplendidSands

   The landscape of Newfoundland illustrates remarkable geologic history formed over many million of years by continental collision, mountain building, volcanoes, oceans, rivers and ice sheets. It has some of the oldest rocks in the world.

   Trinity Bay, located in the eastern zone, is a fragment of Gondwana, once part of southwestern Europe or North Africa that remained attached to Laurentia when the Atlantic formed about 200 million years ago. During the ice age, ice sheets advanced and retreated many times and smoothed and polished wide areas and carved deep valleys through mountains. Along the coast, these valleys were later flooded by the sea, creating deep fjords.

   The grains seen here include shales, the gray to green-black laminated grains as well as the red and purple ones. The yellow grains are sandstone. The speckled grain (center) is porphyritic andesite, a volcanic rock. The cloudy white grains are quartzite.