Geology of the Island

Thanks to an exhibit renewal grant from the Province of New Brunswick's Heritage Branch of the Department of Tourism, Heritage & Culture, the geology exhibit was updated in 2011 by geologist Greg McHone with new displays in a new room. The western coast of the island has high headlands that advance into the sea. This side is covered by thick Mesozoic lava flows around 201 million years old, and it is mostly uninhabited, with a bold front of basalt cliffs.  The eastern side of the island is low and quite level. A variety of schistose metamorphic rock formations underlie this side of the Island, which range in age between 618 and 535 million years. A major basin border fault is well exposed at Red Point, which separates the eastern and western packages of rocks.