Did You Know?

Photo of Charles Darwin
The Joggins Fossil Cliffs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are described in one of science's most influential works, Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. Although Darwin never visited Joggins, he drew on the work there of Sir Charles Lyell and Nova Scotia′s Sir William Dawson. Darwin used Joggins as an example of the best that the fossil record could possibly show us of the history of evolution. Also making a cameo appearance in Origin of Species is one of Joggins' fossils, Dendropupa, the earliest land snail. This little fossil would also be used against Darwin by his archrival Bishop "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce in the famous, first debate of Darwin's theory in 1860.