Port aux Choix Isthmus and Peninsula EarthCache

Port aux Choix Isthmus and Peninsula

Port aux Choix is a settlement on the west side of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula that has been populated for thousands of years. The Dorset people, the Groswater people, and more recent indigenous people called the site home long before the arrival of Europeans.

In 1904, a local uncovered bone, stone, and ivory artifacts by chance, which led to one of the richest archeological discoveries in North America. Port aux Choix was designated a National Historic Site in 1970.  Basque fishermen were the earliest European settlers at Port aux Choix, arriving in the sixteenth century. They named their settlement Portuchoa, meaning “the little port,” which has been altered to Port au Choix. The French controlled the Great Northern Peninsula from the start of the eighteenth century up until 1904.

Mountains, Plates and Lapetus Ocean

The island of Newfoundland occurs at the northeastern terminus of the Appalachian Mountain system, a mountain chain which once paralleled the east coast of North America from Newfoundland to Alabama, and rivaled the present-day Rockies in their beauty. The forces of erosion, however, have taken their toll, and our Appalachians have been worn down to a gently rolling terrain, with only a few upland areas remaining to remind us of their former magnificence. Even though we have been robbed of our Rocky Mountain highs, the erosion of the Appalachians has revealed in Newfoundland a superb cross-section of the core of an ancient mountain belt, and made it the Mecca for earth scientists from around the world.

To understand why Newfoundland geology we must consider plate tectonics, a concept which has revolutionized geology since the mid-1960’s. It has been recognized that the earth’s surface is in constant motion, that it is composed of giant crustal plates that break, separate, rub side-by-side against each other or collide, just the way the ice pans around our coastline do in Spring.

Newfoundland marks the site where one of the earth’s great continental plates split apart about 600 million years ago and then collided again some 200 million years later. When this ancient continental plate split, the two smaller plates began to drift away from each other, and in the space between them an ocean was formed. This ocean has been termed the Lapetus Ocean, and it reached at least 1000 km in width before the wayward drift of the continental pieces was halted, and the two began to come together again.

To understand this, we must study the 500-600 million year old sedimentary rocks that were deposited when the Lapetus Ocean formed. Such rocks are well preserved in the western part of Newfoundland as far east as a line running northeast through Grand Lake, a chunk of Newfoundland which geologists refer to as the Humber.

Isthmus and Peninsula

The harbours at Port aux Choix are protected by Riche Point Peninsula that is connected to the main island of Newfoundland by an isthmus. Port aux Choix Harbour is situated south of the isthmus, and the larger Old Port aux Choix Harbour, known locally as Back Arm, is located north of the isthmus. Point Riche Lighthouse was constructed on the westernmost point of the peninsula in 1871, and in 1913, a lighthouse was built on Querré Island (Grassy Island) to mark the entrance to Back Arm.

What is the difference between a peninsula and an isthmus?

An isthmus is a land connection between two bigger landmasses, while a peninsula is rather a land protrusion which is connected to a bigger landmass on one side only and surrounded by water on all other sides.

Isthmus

An isthmus is a narrow strip of land that connects two larger landmasses and separates two bodies of water. Synonyms for isthmus can be neck or bridge.

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is almost entirely surrounded by water but is connected to the mainland on one side.

Peninsula’s can be connected by an isthmus or it can be a piece of land jutting out into the water whether with or without a well-defined isthmus

To log this Earthcache visit the viewing location. Please answer the following questions and send in a timely manner to my geocaching profile or email. Answers not received will result in deleted logs.

Ground Zero, North side of Isthmus N50° 42.314' W57° 21.211' (port)

Ref A, South side of Isthmus N50° 42.182' W57° 21.255' (beach)

Ref B, East end of Isthmus N50° 42.259' W57° 21.095'

Ref C, West end of Isthmus N50° 42.404' W57° 21.431'

Ref D, Lighthouse, Point Rich N50° 41.941' W57° 24.613'

Ref E, East N50° 42.652' W57° 21.690'

Ref F, West N50° 42.837' W57° 21.821'

Questions:

1. Using Ground Zero and Ref A, how wide is the isthmus?

2. Using Ref B and Ref C, how long is the isthmus?

3. Visit Ref D, Lighthouse and determine how far it is from Ground Zero and Ref E?

4. How is the terrain different at Ref D, Lighthouse than at Ground Zero?

5. After visiting Ref E and Ref F, is this area another isthmus, peninsula, or both?

6. Justify your answer to question 4 for this area?

7. Post a picture in your log with a personal item or hand in picture to prove you were there.

[REQUIRED] In accordance with the updated guidelines from Geocaching Headquarters published in June 2019, photos are now an acceptable logging requirement and WILL BE REQUIRED TO LOG THIS CACHE. Please provide a photo of yourself or a personal item in the picture to prove you visited the site.