Cape George Caper EarthCache

Cape George Caper

Cape George is a cape in Antigonish County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It defines the northwestern limit of St. George's Bay. The communities of Cape George, Cape George Point, Morar and Livingstone Cove are situated on the cape. The cape was named Cap St.Louis by the French. Early English maps mark it as Cape St. George.

Cape George Lighthouse was declared a heritage lighthouse under the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act of 2008 in part because it is a very good example of an octagonal, tapered, reinforced-concrete lighthouse built using a standard plan that was favoured in the twentieth century. The lighthouse was transferred to the local community in 2016.

A Cape

A Cape is a headland or a promontory of large size extending into a body of water, usually the sea or ocean. Here, Cape George juts into the Northumberland Strait. A cape usually represents a marked change in trend of the coastline which makes them prone to natural forms of erosion, The cape is a high point of land and can extend into a river or lake as well as the ocean. Capes can be formed by glaciers, volcanoes, oceans currents, rivers, and changes in sea level. Erosion plays a large role in each of these methods of formation.

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Peninsulas are similar to capes. Most geographers consider capes to be smaller than peninsulas. Capes are narrow features that jut into a body of water where Peninsulas can be large, and many are barely connected to the mainland at all where a Cape has strong connection to the headlands.

Headlands is a narrow piece of land which sticks out from the coast into a body of water. When a headland becomes a considerable size it is called a cape. Headlands characteristics include high, breaking waves, rocky shores , intense erosion and steep sea cliffs. Headlands and bays are often found on the same coastline. A bay is flanked by land on three sides where a headland is flanked by water on three sides.

Concordant and Discordant coastline

Concordant and discordant coastlines occur when the geology of the coastline alternates between bands of hard rock and soft rock. A concordant, or longitudinal type coastline occurs where beds, or layers, of differing rock types are folded into ridges that run parallel to the coast. A discordant coastline occurs where bands of different rock type run perpendicular to the coast. The differing resistance to erosion leads to the formation of headlands and bays.

A Pluton

Cape George is part of a series of Pluton’s throughout the region. A pluton, body of intrusive igneous rock the size, composition, shape, or exact type of which is in doubt. Often the intrusive rock will make a pyramid shape as it moves to the crust to cool.

In geology, a pluton is a body of intrusive igneous rock (called a plutonic rock) that is crystallized from magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Plutons include batholiths, stocks, dikes, sills, laccoliths, lopoliths, and other igneous formations. In practice, pluton's usually refers to a distinctive mass of igneous rock, typically several kilometers in dimension, without a tabular, or flat, shape like those of dikes and sills.

The most common rock types in plutons are granite, granodiorite, tonalite, monzonite, and quartz diorite. Generally light colored, coarse-grained plutons of these compositions are referred to as granitoids.

Geology

Cape George is part of the Horton group from the Devonina to Carboniferous periods. There are also outcrops of the Arisaig group from the Silurian period.

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Questions:

1. What is the elevation at ground zero?

2. Describe the coast along Cape George?

3. Why is the Cape still here?

4. Is Cape George a Concordant or Discordant coastline?

5. Why is the cove to the south so much larger than coves to the North?

6. At Ref A, looking East to the Cape, what is the shape of the Cape?

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.