Gros Morne National Park

Gros Morne National Park
Gros Morne National Park
Parc national du Gros-Morne
IUCN category II (national park)
	Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne National Park
	Location in Canada Location in Newfoundland
Location	Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Coordinates	49°41′22″N 57°44′17″W / 49.68944°N 57.73806°W
Area	1,805 km2 (697 sq mi)
Established	October 1, 2005 (national park); August 1973 (national park reserve)
Governing body	Parks Canada
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Criteria	Natural: vii, viii
Reference	419
Inscription	1987 (11th Session)

Gros Morne National Park is a Canadian national park and 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 after Torngat Mountains National Park, which has an area of 9,700 km² (3,700 sq mi).

The park takes its name from Newfoundland's second-highest mountain peak (at 806 m or 2,644 ft) 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. In 1987, the park was awarded World Heritage Site status by UNESCO because "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, and was made a national park on October 1, 2005.

The park was the subject of a short film in 2011's National Parks Project.

Geology

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, Precambrian granite and Palaeozoic igneous rocks.^[2] The Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) of the Tremadocian stage and the all Ordovician system is defined in the Green Point section within this park.^[3]

The park is located in the Great Northern Peninsula of Western Newfoundland. This peninsula is referred to as the Humber Zone, a Miogeocline, the Highlands of which contain the largest external basement massif of the Grenville Orogeny in the Appalachian Orogen. This Precambrian basement is known as the Long Range Inlier, Long Range Complex or Basement Gneiss Complex, consisting of quartz–feldspar gneisses and granites that are up to 1550 Ma in age. Mt. Gros Morne and Mt. Big Level lie within this Inlier. The western boundary of this inlier (along Western Brook Pond, St. Pauls Inlet, and south of Portl Creek Pond) consists of Devonian and Ordovician thrust faults, where crystalline rocks thrust over Cambrian–Ordovician carbonate rocks and the Lower Paleozoic Humber Arm Allochthon. The Rocky Harbour mélange is a Lower–Middle Ordovician collection of greywacke, quartzite, dolomite shale, chert, limestone blocks within a black, green, and red scaly shale matrix, which occurs along the shore from West Brook Pond to Humber Arm (Bay of Islands). The south portion of the park, Table Mtn. (Tablelands) and North Arm Mtn., consists of Upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician ophiolites known as the Bay of Islands Complex, Little Post Complex, and Old Man Cove Formation. Finally, a Pleistocene ice cap flowed radially across the island, developing fjords such as Bonne Bay.^[4]

Tablelands

The Tablelands, found between the towns of Trout River and Woody Point in south west of 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 some of the usual nutrients required to sustain most plant life and has a toxic quality, hence its barren appearance.^[5] 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.

Soils

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.^[6]

Western Brook Pond – Fjord

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 16-kilometre (9.9 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^[7] and 199th highest in the world,^[8] flows into Western Brook Pond. Sedimentary rocks, some of them calcareous, underlie the westernmost shores. Elsewhere, granitic gneiss is dominant.^[9]

Nature and wildlife

The most notable animal in the park is the moose, part of a booming population that was introduced to Newfoundland around 1900. Other common wildlife in the park include red foxes and Arctic foxes, an ecotype of caribou (R.t caribou), black bears, snowshoe hares, red squirrels, lynxes, river otters and beavers. Harbour seals are common in St. Pauls inlet, and cetaceans (minkes, humpbacks, fins, pilots, orcas, atlantic white-sided dolphins, harbour porpoises)^[10] may be in the area especially during the capelin season in early summer. Many bird species can be found in the park, from shorebirds along the ocean to birds of the bogs and interior forests.^[11]

World Heritage Site

In 1987, the park was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for both its geological history and its exceptional scenery. The geology of the park in particular illustrates the concept of plate tectonics,^[12] and has shed important light on geological evolution and its processes.

In respect of its key role in the development of an understanding of plate tectonics, the Mohorovičić discontinuity at Gros Morne was included by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022.^[13]

Trails

Hiking the trails is a popular activity at Gros Morne. There are about 20 marked day trip trails, exploring coastal and interior areas of the park. One of the more strenuous dayhikes is the 16 km hike over Gros Morne Mountain. This trail is also called the James Callaghan Trail after the former British Prime Minister, who visited in 1976, in recognition of his conservation efforts. A small controversy arose after Callaghan did not visit the trail that had been named in his honour.^[14]

The interior of the park can also be accessed, notably through the multi-day Long Range Traverse between Western Brook Pond and Gros Morne Mountain.

Arts and culture

The park is home to many arts festivals, including Gros Morne Theatre Festival,^[15] Writers at Woody Point, Gros Morne Summer Music, and Trails, Tales and Tunes.^[16]

References

^ "Gros Morne National Park". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. UNESCO.
^ A guide to the geology of the park and adjacent areas http://gac.esd.mun.ca/nl/pdf/Field%20Guide%202003.pdf Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
^ Cooper, Roger; Nowlan, Godfrey; Williams, S. H. (March 2001). "Global Stratotype Section and Point for base of the Ordovician System" (PDF). Episodes. 24 (1): 19–28. doi:10.18814/epiiugs/2001/v24i1/005. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 25, 2024. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
^ Williams, Harold (1995). Geology of the Appalachian–Caledonian Orogen in Canada and Greenland, Geology of Canada, no. 6. Canada: Geological Survey of Canada. pp. 5, 26, 50–54, 99–103, 690, 846, 849. ISBN 0-660-13134-X.
^ "From the Intertidal Zone to the Upper Mantle – The Amazing Geology of Gros Morne National Park" (PDF). Geological Association of Canada Newfoundland Section. October 2003. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016.
^ "Cansis publications nf nf11". Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved April 12, 2009. Soils of the Sandy Lake – Bay of Islands Area, Western Newfoundland
^ "World Waterfall Database: North American Falls". Retrieved February 23, 2012.
^ "World Waterfall Database: World-wide Falls". Retrieved February 23, 2012.
^ "Map 1551A" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 13, 2021. Retrieved February 18, 2018.
^ "Wildlife – Gros Morne National Park". November 27, 2019. Archived from the original on September 22, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
^ A place mammals can call home, June 4, 2014, archived from the original on August 21, 2014, retrieved September 13, 2014
^ "Parks Canada – Gros Morne National Park – The Story in Stone". Parks Canada. 2010. Archived from the original on October 5, 2015. Retrieved November 9, 2015.
^ "The First 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites" (PDF). IUGS International Commission on Geoheritage. IUGS. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
^ Burgess, Kaya (December 30, 2008). "The late 70s Callaghan beset by Canadian environmentalists". The Times. London. Retrieved May 4, 2010.^{[dead link‍]}
^ "ArtsNL – Theatre Newfoundland Labrador". www.nlac.ca. Archived from the original on May 24, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
^ "Festivals › Visit Gros Morne". visitgrosmorne.com. Retrieved March 23, 2018.