Mistaken Point (Newfoundland and Labrador)
| Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve | |
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IUCN category II (national park)
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| Location | Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada |
| Nearest city | St. John's |
| Coordinates | 46°37′55″N 53°11′25″W / 46.63194°N 53.19028°WCoordinates: 46°37′55″N 53°11′25″W / 46.63194°N 53.19028°W |
| Area | 5.7 km2 (2.2 sq mi) |
| Established | 1984 |
| Governing body | Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Environment and Conservation |
| Official name | Mistaken Point |
| Type | Natural |
| Criteria | viii |
| Designated | 2016 (40th session) |
| Reference no. | 1497 |
| State Party | Canada |
| Region | Europe and North America |
Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve is a wilderness area located at the southeastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada which contains the Mistaken Point Formation, the site of Ediacaran fossils representing the oldest multicellular life on Earth. The reserve contains one of the most diverse and well-preserved collections of Precambrian fossils known.
Mistaken Point (46°37′32″N 53°09′41″W / 46.62556°N 53.16139°W) is a small headland on the Avalon Peninsula with the ecological reserve. Mistaken Point takes its name from the deadly results of mistaking it for Cape Race, in the area's typically foggy weather. Sailors who would make this mistake would turn north, thinking they had reached Cape Race Harbour, and immediately run into treacherous rocks.
The first fossil to be found in the area, Fractofusus misrai, was discovered in June 1967 by Shiva Balak Misra, an Indian graduate student studying geology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. The site became quickly recognized in the mid-1980s as an important find containing probably the oldest metazoan fossils in North America and the most ancient deep-water marine fossils in the world. a A 5 kilometer stretch of coastline was first established provisionally as a reserve by the provincial government in 1984 and was permanently designated in 1987. It was later expanded in 2009 after further fossil discoveries.
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