CLIFTON FORMATION (Upper Carboniferous)
PICTOU GROUP

The coastal section between Janeville and Miscou, with the best exposures between Clifton and Grande Anse, Gloucester County, New Brunswick. Additionnal reference sections were designated by  Ball and others (1981), and include a section along Bass River near the New Brunswick Highway 11 bridge, with outcrops on Shippegan Island between Pigeon Hill and Saint-Raphael-sur-Mer, all in Gloucester County.

The Clifton Formation comprises three informal members labelled A, B and C by Ball and others (1981). Member A is grey coarse-grained quartzose sandstone with large-scale cross-bedding and quartz pebble conglomerate. Member B is divisible into two parts: the lower part is mainly red and grey mudstone with interbedded, fine-grained sandstone and thin coal seams; the upper part is mainly grey, coarse- to fine-graines, cross-bedded sandstone with minor mudstone. Member C is reddish brown to greenish grey, fine- to coarse-grained, lithic-micaceous sandstone, pebble conglomerate, and mudstone.

The formation underlies the Bathurst-Newcastle-Shippegan area. Membre B is most widespread. Member A outcrops only in the Bass River area, but is present in the subsurface near Sevogle. Member C outcrops only in the Pigeon Hill-Pokemouche and Pount Gardiner-Baie Ste. Anne areas. Members A and B are, respectively, up to 18 m and 719 m thick. Up to 73 m of member C is preserved.

The Clifton Formation gradationally overlies the Early Upper Carboniferous (late Namurian) rocks of the Red Pine Brook Formation.

CARAQUET DYKE (Early Jurassic)

500 m west of Point à Brideau, Caraquet, Chaleur Bay (Bay of Chaleur), Gloucester County, New Brunswick.

Lithology: Dark grey tholeiitic diabase; the presence of pigeonite is characteristic.

The Caraquet Dyke outcrops in two exposures, about 25 m across, that are separated by a septum of flat-lying sandstone on the shore at Caraquet. Intermittent exposures can be traced inland for 40 km to the southwest. Extensions of the dyke into southwestern New Brunswick are exposed at three localities in York County: on the Keswick River noth of Howard Peak Lake; on the Trans-Canada Highway 3 km southeast of Meductic; and near the Maine border 4 km south of Fosterville.

The Caraquet Dyke intrudes Carboniferous sandstone at Caraquet, Devonian granodiorite on the Keswick River, Cambrian-Ordovician quartzite in the Meductic area, and Devonian granite near Fosterville.

Grande Anse, NB

GRANDE ANSE

The coastline of New Brunswick’s north shore with the iconic lighthouse at Grande Anse provides a spectacular example of the province’s Upper Carboniferous geology. The sandstone cliffs seem to run forever along the coast, the layers of rock seemingly flat-lying and unchanging. Above on the plateau the landscape is a reflection of the simple geology below. A closer inspection of the rocks shows a more complex structure however. The rock layers have a gentle slope and slowly each layer dips down to the sea. Individual layers mays be thick or thin, sand or shale, barren or full of fossils. The Clifton Formation has yielded beautiful fossils of delicate leaves from seed ferns and giant horsetails. A practiced eye can pick out cross-bedded layers of sandstone or the path of an ancient river channel cut into the layers below. These thick layers of sedimentary rock generally lie undisturbed on the older geology below. Those older rocks were forged by the closing of oceans; folded, faulted and intruded by molten rock. By comparison the rocks of the Upper Carboniferous were laid down gently on top in rivers and lakes.