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96-599: Anticosti is an island located between the Jacques Cartier and Honguedo Straits, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence , in L'Île-d'Anticosti (Municipality) , Minganie MRC , Côte-Nord , Quebec , Canada . On September 19, 2023, Anticosti was inscribed on UNESCO 's World Heritage List. It is recognized for its exceptional fossil assemblage representing the first global mass extinction of animal life on Earth. Located within protected areas free from any industrial activity,

192-600: A dense rock equivalent volume of as much as 1,140 cubic kilometres (270 cu mi). Remarkably, this appears to have had little impact on life. There was vigorous tectonic activity along northwest margin of Gondwana during the Floian, 478 Ma, recorded in the Central Iberian Zone of Spain. The activity reached as far as Turkey by the end of Ordovician. The opposite margin of Gondwana, in Australia, faced

288-513: A subarctic climate ( Köppen Dfc ), affected by the maritime influence of the Gulf of St. Lawrence which reduces seasonal temperature variation. The average annual temperature is 2.0 °C (35.6 °F). The month of July is the warmest with an average temperature of 15.3 °C or 59.5 °F. Conversely, February is the coldest month, averaging −10.9 °C or 12.4 °F. Snowfall is abundant, usually accumulating over 3 metres or 120 inches in

384-545: A BAPE (environmental evaluation) specific for Anticosti and the report, published on October 3, is in favour of creating a protected area on the island. Jacques Cartier Strait The Jacques Cartier Strait ( French : Détroit de Jacques-Cartier ) is an arm of the sea located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence , between the shore of Côte-Nord region and the North of Anticosti Island , in Quebec , Canada . The other arm of

480-493: A beneficial introduction; six species of terrestrial mammals ( white-tailed deer , moose , beaver , snowshoe hare and muskrat ), two species of frogs, and two species of non-migratory birds ( ruffed grouse and the spruce grouse ). Of all these species introduced, the success of white-tailed deer is particularly noteworthy. From an initial group of about 200 (introduced in 1896 and 1897), the number of white-tailed deer has grown to an estimated 37,000 animals in 2018, representing

576-603: A biogeographic affinity with Gondwana, and the Alborz margin of Gondwana was linked biogeographically to South China. Southeast Asia's fauna also maintained strong affinities to Gondwana's. North China was biogeographically connected to Laurentia and the Argentinian margin of Gondwana. A Celtic biogeographic province also existed, separate from the Laurentian and Baltican ones. However, tropical articulate brachiopods had

672-468: A burst of volcanic activity that deposited new silicate rocks, which draw CO 2 out of the air as they erode. Another possibility is that bryophytes and lichens, which colonized land in the middle to late Ordovician, may have increased weathering enough to draw down CO 2 levels. The drop in CO 2 selectively affected the shallow seas where most organisms lived. It has also been suggested that shielding of

768-590: A deep embayment between Siberia and the Central Mongolian terranes . Most of the terranes of central Asia were part of an equatorial archipelago whose geometry is poorly constrained by the available evidence. The period was one of extensive, widespread tectonism and volcanism. However, orogenesis (mountain-building) was not primarily due to continent-continent collisions. Instead, mountains arose along active continental margins during accretion of arc terranes or ribbon microcontinents. Accretion of new crust

864-409: A density of 4.7 deer/km. Without predators, this man-made deer population has had noticeable impacts on the island ecosystem. Balsam fir trees covered about 40% of the island, prior to the introduction of the deer. The deer eat tender sprouts from the ground, and prevent fir regeneration; in turn, the firs are being replaced by white spruce. The brook trout , Atlantic salmon and American eel visit

960-607: A distinct band around the Earth, and that the breakup of the parent body may have formed a ring system for a period of about 40 million years, with frequent falling debris causing these craters. The Ordovician was a time of calcite sea geochemistry in which low-magnesium calcite was the primary inorganic marine precipitate of calcium carbonate . Carbonate hardgrounds were thus very common, along with calcitic ooids , calcitic cements, and invertebrate faunas with dominantly calcitic skeletons. Biogenic aragonite , like that composing

1056-464: A given landmass were severely affected. Tropical lifeforms were hit particularly hard in the first wave of extinction, while cool-water species were hit worst in the second pulse. Those species able to adapt to the changing conditions survived to fill the ecological niches left by the extinctions. For example, there is evidence the oceans became more deeply oxygenated during the glaciation, allowing unusual benthic organisms (Hirnantian fauna) to colonize

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1152-419: A herd of 220 white-tailed deer . The deer thrived and today the population exceeds 160,000 while the island's moose population is about 1,000. It has been reported that black bears , which rely on berries to bulk on for the winter, had lived on the island until the introduction, but have disappeared perhaps because of the deer eating the berry bushes bare. Henri Menier died in 1913 and his brother Gaston became

1248-693: A more cosmopolitan distribution , with less diversity on different continents. During the Middle Ordovician, beta diversity began a significant decline as marine taxa began to disperse widely across space. Faunas become less provincial later in the Ordovician, partly due to the narrowing of the Iapetus Ocean, though they were still distinguishable into the late Ordovician. Trilobites in particular were rich and diverse, and experienced rapid diversification in many regions. Trilobites in

1344-496: A national conservation park. With its 24 rivers and streams bountiful with salmon and trout, the island is now a tourist destination for anglers and hunters, particularly from the United States and Canada, as well as for paleontologists , bird watchers and hikers. In 2023, the perimeter of Anticosti Island, with two rivers, was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site , for its abundance of fossils. The World Heritage Site includes

1440-728: A period known as the Ordovician meteor event . It has been theorized that this increase in impacts may originate from a ring system that formed around Earth at the time. In 2008, the ICS erected a formal international system of subdivisions for the Ordovician Period and System. Pre-existing Baltoscandic, British, Siberian, North American, Australian, Chinese, Mediterranean and North- Gondwanan regional stratigraphic schemes are also used locally. The Ordovician Period in Britain

1536-627: A prelude to hydraulic fracturing on the island, with the province pledging $ 115-million to finance drilling for two separate joint ventures in exchange for rights to 50% of the licences and 60% of any commercial profit. It was the first oil and gas deal of any size for the province. With the change in government that occurred in April 2014, the Liberals of Philippe Couillard could change that decision. Petrolia Inc. , Corridor Resources and Maurel & Prom formed one joint-venture, while Junex Inc.

1632-404: A presentation at a conference explaining that a minimum of 12,000 wells would be necessary for this exploitation and would put Quebec in debt, considering the 12 million dollar cost of one of these wells. A year later, when Pauline Marois announced an investment of 115 million dollars for Petrolia to continue the exploration, the same petition increased up to 36,000 signatures. The government started

1728-541: A set of island arcs. The accretion of these arcs to the eastern margin of Gondwana was responsible for the Benambran Orogeny of eastern Australia. Subduction also took place along what is now Argentina (Famatinian Orogeny) at 450 Ma. This involved significant back arc rifting. The interior of Gondwana was tectonically quiet until the Triassic . Towards the end of the period, Gondwana began to drift across

1824-513: A social world of the 1920s gone forever, series of photos by Marie-Victorin: Brother Kirouac (1885-1944). In 2004, the island's vascular flora was estimated at 700 species. Rare Plants of the Mingan Archipelago, Parks Canada 2023, said that nearly a tenth of Anticosti Island's flora are rare plants, most of which colonize open habitats associated with rivers ( cliffs , taluses or pebbled surfaces) and mineral bogs . Anticosti Island

1920-541: A sulphite mill and wanted a steady supply of pulpwood and access to Canadian capital. In the autumn of that year, a team of German surveyors travelled to the island to examine its timber and export potential. When this story broke in the Montreal Gazette of 2 December 1937, it caused an immediate controversy since the story claimed that the survey team was really made up of Adolf Hitler 's agents and that most were naval, military and fortifications experts. Despite

2016-410: Is distinguished by some minor stands of American white birch and Trembling aspen. Balsam fir is slowly being replaced with White spruce because of intensive grazing done by White tail deer and by periodic outbreaks of Hemlock looper and Spruce budworm . About a quarter of the island is covered by peat lands. In Anticosti Island, the wildlife is characteristic of an isolated marine environment. Of

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2112-410: Is home to the rare orchid, Cypripedium arietinum Ait. f. — Cypripède tête-de-bélier. — (Ram's Head Lady's Slipper). While populations are declining elsewhere in eastern North America, the orchid flourishes here abundantly, making Anticosti a refuge for this plant. The forests of Anticosti Island are typical boreal forest , with common species such as White spruce, Balsam fir, and Black spruce. It

2208-489: Is marked by a sudden abundance of hard substrate trace fossils such as Trypanites , Palaeosabella , Petroxestes and Osprioneides . Bioerosion became an important process, particularly in the thick calcitic skeletons of corals, bryozoans and brachiopods, and on the extensive carbonate hardgrounds that appear in abundance at this time. Green algae were common in the Late Cambrian (perhaps earlier) and in

2304-768: Is separated on the north from the Côte-Nord region of Quebec (the Labrador Peninsula ) by the Jacques Cartier Strait , and on the south from the Gaspé Peninsula by the Honguedo Strait . Anticosti Island is larger than Prince Edward Island but sparsely populated (218 people in 2016 ), with most of the permanent population in the village of Port-Menier on the western tip of the island; this population once consisted chiefly of

2400-498: Is serviced by Air Liaison which provides regular scheduled flights to Sept-Îles and Havre-St-Pierre . There are two other aerodromes on the island, both towards the eastern end. Rivière-aux-Saumons (CTH7) is located on the northern side of the island and was paved in July 2010; Rivière Bell (CRB5) is gravel and is located on the southern side. These are used by outfitters and charter companies that provide private air services during

2496-702: Is under management by Sépaq Anticosti, a division of the provincial parks and wildlife reserves agency Sépaq . It actively promotes tourism on the island, in particular hunting and fishing tours. Another 572 km (221 sq mi) is protected in the Anticosti National Park ( Parc national d'Anticosti ). In addition to hunting and fishing, many other outdoor recreational activities are supported in this park, such as hiking, horseback riding, nature viewing and sea kayaking. There are also five commercial outfitters that hold exclusive hunting and fishing rights to 7,263 km (2,804 sq mi) of

2592-518: The Cambrian , reef -forming corals appeared in the early Ordovician, including the earliest known octocorals , corresponding to an increase in the stability of carbonate and thus a new abundance of calcifying animals. Brachiopods surged in diversity, adapting to almost every type of marine environment. Even after GOBE, there is evidence suggesting that Ordovician brachiopods maintained elevated rates of speciation. Molluscs , which appeared during

2688-652: The Canadian Confederation in 1867. During these years the island property changed hands several times, its owners generally using it for the harvesting of timber; otherwise no real development took place. For example, the French Canadian Gabriel-Elzéar Taschereau owned it among other seigneuries and made money from them. In 1874, it was bought by the Anticosti Island Company and they founded

2784-455: The Devonian . The first land plants are known from this period. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event considerably increased the diversity of life. Fish , the world's first true vertebrates , continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. About 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth per year during the Ordovician compared with today in

2880-766: The Rheic Ocean between Gondwana and Avalonia. Avalonia collided with Baltica towards the end of Ordovician. Other geographic features of the Ordovician world included the Tornquist Sea , which separated Avalonia from Baltica; the Aegir Ocean, which separated Baltica from Siberia; and an oceanic area between Siberia, Baltica, and Gondwana which expanded to become the Paleoasian Ocean in Carboniferous time. The Mongol-Okhotsk Ocean formed

2976-735: The Seigneury of the Mingan Archipelago and Anticosti Island as compensation for reconnoitring the Mississippi and Hudson Bay . Louis Jolliet erected a fort on Anticosti and in the spring of 1681 settled there with his wife, four children and six servants. His fort was captured and occupied during the winter of 1690 by some of the Massachusetts troops of William Phips during their retreat after an unsuccessful attempt to capture Quebec City . After Jolliet's death in 1700,

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3072-471: The endocerid cephalopods died out completely, except for possible rare Silurian forms. The Ordovician–Silurian extinction events may have been caused by an ice age that occurred at the end of the Ordovician Period, due to the expansion of the first terrestrial plants , as the end of the Late Ordovician was one of the coldest times in the last 600 million years of Earth's history. On the whole,

3168-1687: The 24 mammal species, 14 or 15 of these are marine mammals that include Grey Seal and Harbor Seal. Even large whales ply the nearby cold waters, thirteen species of cetaceans frequent the waters of the estuary and the gulf of the St. Lawrence River 1. Hyperoodon ampullatus . — Hypéroodon boreal, Hypéroodon arctique. — (Northern Bottlenose Whale). 2. Delphinapterus leucas . — Béluga, Bélouga, Baleine blanche, Dauphin blanc, Marsouin blanc. — (Beluga Whale). 3. Physeter macrocephalus . — Grand cachalot, Cachalot, Cachalot macrocéphale. — (Sperm whale). 4. Lagenorhynchus acutus . — Lagénorhynque à flancs blancs, Dauphin à flancs blancs. — (Atlantic white-sided dolphin). 5. Lagenorhynchus albirostris . — Dauphin à nez blanc, Dauphin à bec blanc, Lagénorhynque à bec blanc. — (White-beaked dolphin). 6. Orcinus orca . — Orque, Épaulard. — (Killer Whale). 7. Globicephala melas . — Globicéphale commun, Globicéphale noir, Dauphin pilote. — (Long-Finned Pilot Whale). 8. Phocoena Phocoena . — Marsouin commun, Cochon de mer, Dieu des mers. — (Harbour Porpoise). 9. Eubalaena glacialis . — Baleine franche de l'Atlantique nord, Baleine noire de l'Atlantique nord, Baleine de Biscaye. — (North Atlantic Right Whale). 10. Balaenoptera acutorostrata . — Petit rorqual. — (Minke whale). 11. Balaenoptera musculus . — Baleine bleue, Rorqual bleu. — (Blue whale). 12. Megaptera novaeangliae . — Rorqual à bosse, Baleine à bosse. — (Humpback whale). 13. Balaenoptera physalus . — Rorqual commun. — (Fin whale). Originally, there were probably only seven indigenous species of land mammals,

3264-516: The Cambrian or even the Ediacaran , became common and varied, especially bivalves , gastropods , and nautiloid cephalopods. Cephalopods diversified from shallow marine tropical environments to dominate almost all marine environments. Graptolites, which evolved in the preceding Cambrian period, thrived in the oceans. This includes the distinctive Nemagraptus gracilis graptolite fauna, which

3360-472: The Cambrian were succeeded by those that dominated the rest of the Paleozoic, such as articulate brachiopods, cephalopods , and crinoids . Articulate brachiopods, in particular, largely replaced trilobites in shelf communities. Their success epitomizes the greatly increased diversity of carbonate shell-secreting organisms in the Ordovician compared to the Cambrian. Ordovician geography had its effect on

3456-967: The Dapingian and the early Darriwilian. The Llanvirn corresponds to the late Darriwilian. The Caradoc covers the Sandbian and the first half of the Katian. The Ashgill represents the second half of the Katian, plus the Hirnantian . The Ashgill Epoch, the last epoch of the British Ordovician, is made of four ages: the Hirnantian Age, the Rawtheyan Age, the Cautleyan Age, and the Pusgillian Age. These ages make up

3552-571: The Day of the Assumption of Mary . This name had fallen into disuse by 1656. About 1586, the historian André Thevet wrote that "the savages named [it] Naticousti", while Samuel de Champlain spelled it Antiscoti (1612), Antiscoty (1613), Enticosty (1625) and Antycosty (1632). From that time on, France had officially incorporated the island into its colonial empire . The island's first European settlers arrived in 1680 when Louis XIV gave Louis Jolliet

3648-848: The Early Eocene Climatic Optimum. Carbon dioxide levels were very high at the Ordovician period's beginning. By the late Early Ordovician, the Earth cooled, giving way to a more temperate climate in the Middle Ordovician, with the Earth likely entering the Early Palaeozoic Ice Age during the Sandbian, and possibly as early as the Darriwilian or even the Floian. The Dapingian and Sandbian saw major humidification events evidenced by trace metal concentrations in Baltoscandia from this time. Evidence suggests that global temperatures rose briefly in

3744-532: The Early Ordovician, leveling off somewhat during the middle of the period. Locally, some regressions occurred, but the sea level rise continued in the beginning of the Late Ordovician. Sea levels fell steadily due to the cooling temperatures for about 3 million years leading up to the Hirnantian glaciation. During this icy stage, sea level seems to have risen and dropped somewhat. Despite much study,

3840-559: The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event) was no less remarkable; marine faunal genera increased fourfold, resulting in 12% of all known Phanerozoic marine fauna. Several animals also went through a miniaturization process, becoming much smaller than their Cambrian counterparts. Another change in the fauna was the strong increase in filter-feeding organisms. The trilobite, inarticulate brachiopod, archaeocyathid , and eocrinoid faunas of

3936-507: The Hirnantian glaciation. As with North America and Europe , Gondwana was largely covered with shallow seas during the Ordovician. Shallow clear waters over continental shelves encouraged the growth of organisms that deposit calcium carbonates in their shells and hard parts. The Panthalassic Ocean covered much of the Northern Hemisphere , and other minor oceans included Proto-Tethys , Paleo-Tethys , Khanty Ocean , which

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4032-489: The Martes americana and Ursus americanus have now been extirpated : In order to make Anticosti Island a hunter's "paradise", several animal species have been introduced; starting in 1896, the island became an unprecedented biological experiment. In all, sixteen introduced species have been attempted, with six proving to be unsuccessful, namely bison , caribou , elk , mink and fisher . However, for ten species, it has been

4128-469: The Ordovician of Wisconsin have been found with an age of about 460 million years ago, a time when the land flora most likely only consisted of plants similar to non-vascular bryophytes . Though stromatolites had declined from their peak in the Proterozoic, they continued to exist in localised settings. The Ordovician came to a close in a series of extinction events that, taken together, comprise

4224-421: The Ordovician were very different from their predecessors in the Cambrian. Many trilobites developed bizarre spines and nodules to defend against predators such as primitive eurypterids and nautiloids while other trilobites such as Aeglina prisca evolved to become swimming forms. Some trilobites even developed shovel-like snouts for ploughing through muddy sea bottoms. Another unusual clade of trilobites known as

4320-582: The Ordovician, when at least two volcanic island arcs collided with Laurentia to form the Appalachian Mountains . Laurentia was otherwise tectonically stable. An island arc accreted to South China during the period, while subduction along north China (Sulinheer) resulted in the emplacement of ophiolites. The ash fall of the Millburg/Big Bentonite bed, at about 454 Ma, was the largest in the last 590 million years. This had

4416-428: The Ordovician. The ice age was possibly not long-lasting. Oxygen isotopes in fossil brachiopods show its duration may have been only 0.5 to 1.5 million years. Other researchers (Page et al.) estimate more temperate conditions did not return until the late Silurian. The late Ordovician glaciation event was preceded by a fall in atmospheric carbon dioxide (from 7000 ppm to 4400 ppm). The dip may have been caused by

4512-557: The Ordovician. Terrestrial plants probably evolved from green algae, first appearing as tiny non- vascular forms resembling liverworts , in the middle to late Ordovician. Fossil spores found in Ordovician sedimentary rock are typical of bryophytes. Among the first land fungi may have been arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi ( Glomerales ), playing a crucial role in facilitating the colonization of land by plants through mycorrhizal symbiosis , which makes mineral nutrients available to plant cells; such fossilized fungal hyphae and spores from

4608-656: The Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress . Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it had in the earlier Cambrian Period, although the end of the period was marked by the Ordovician–Silurian extinction events . Invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods , dominated the oceans, with members of the latter group probably starting their establishment on land during this time, becoming fully established by

4704-613: The South Pole. This contributed to the Hibernian glaciation and the associated extinction event. The Ordovician meteor event is a proposed shower of meteors that occurred during the Middle Ordovician Epoch, about 467.5 ± 0.28 million years ago, due to the break-up of the L chondrite parent body. It is not associated with any major extinction event. A 2024 study found that craters from this event cluster in

4800-669: The Vauréal Falls, 13 km from the coast, crossing the Vauréal canyon where the river is enclosed between two limestone walls. Anticosti has had several First Nations names: Natigôsteg, “advanced land” in Mi'kmaq ; Natashquan, “where we catch bears”, in Innu. In 1535, Jacques Cartier wrote: "the said island which we have named the island of Assumption", after having written Antiscoti (1612) and Antiscoty (1613), Samuel de Champlain spelled

4896-564: The Wuliuan, exploded in diversity during the Tremadocian, quickly becoming globally widespread. Several groups of endobiotic symbionts appeared in the Ordovician. In the Early Ordovician, trilobites were joined by many new types of organisms, including tabulate corals, strophomenid , rhynchonellid , and many new orthid brachiopods, bryozoans, planktonic graptolites and conodonts, and many types of molluscs and echinoderms, including

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4992-512: The depths. These organisms were cosmopolitan in distribution and present at most latitudes. At the end of the second event, melting glaciers caused the sea level to rise and stabilise once more. The rebound of life's diversity with the permanent re-flooding of continental shelves at the onset of the Silurian saw increased biodiversity within the surviving Orders. Recovery was characterized by an unusual number of "Lazarus taxa", disappearing during

5088-473: The details remain unresolved. In particular, some researches interpret the fluctuations in sea level as pre-Hibernian glaciation, but sedimentary evidence of glaciation is lacking until the end of the period. There is evidence of glaciers during the Hirnantian on the land we now know as Africa and South America, which were near the South Pole at the time, facilitating the formation of the ice caps of

5184-422: The diversity of fauna; Ordovician invertebrates displayed a very high degree of provincialism. The widely separated continents of Laurentia and Baltica, then positioned close to the tropics and boasting many shallow seas rich in life, developed distinct trilobite faunas from the trilobite fauna of Gondwana, and Gondwana developed distinct fauna in its tropical and temperature zones. The Tien Shan terrane maintained

5280-559: The early Katian (Boda Event), depositing bioherms and radiating fauna across Europe. The early Katian also witnessed yet another humidification event. Further cooling during the Hirnantian, at the end of the Ordovician, led to the Late Ordovician glaciation . The Ordovician saw the highest sea levels of the Paleozoic, and the low relief of the continents led to many shelf deposits being formed under hundreds of metres of water. The sea level rose more or less continuously throughout

5376-492: The entire coastline of the island (except for the region around the village of Port-Menier), and the banks of the Jupiter and Vauréal rivers. A one-kilometer buffer zone extends inland from the coasts and riverbanks. Access to the island is either by boat or plane. From April to mid-January, the commercial shipping company Relais Nordik services Port-Menier twice weekly with a passenger and cargo vessel. The Port-Menier Airport

5472-425: The extinction and reappearing well into the Silurian, which suggests that the taxa survived in small numbers in refugia . An alternate extinction hypothesis suggested that a ten-second gamma-ray burst could have destroyed the ozone layer and exposed terrestrial and marine surface-dwelling life to deadly ultraviolet radiation and initiated global cooling. Recent work considering the sequence stratigraphy of

5568-485: The fauna that emerged in the Ordovician were the template for the remainder of the Palaeozoic. The fauna was dominated by tiered communities of suspension feeders, mainly with short food chains. The ecological system reached a new grade of complexity far beyond that of the Cambrian fauna, which has persisted until the present day. Though less famous than the Cambrian explosion , the Ordovician radiation (also known as

5664-578: The first rugose corals appeared. The planktonic graptolites remained diverse, with the Diplograptina making their appearance. One of the earliest known armoured agnathan (" ostracoderm ") vertebrates, Arandaspis , dates from the Middle Ordovician. During the Middle Ordovician there was a large increase in the intensity and diversity of bioeroding organisms. This is known as the Ordovician Bioerosion Revolution. It

5760-502: The globe. At the start of the period, the continents of Laurentia (in present-day North America ), Siberia , and Baltica (present-day northern Europe) were separated from Gondwana by over 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) of ocean. These smaller continents were also sufficiently widely separated from each other to develop distinct communities of benthic organisms. The small continent of Avalonia had just rifted from Gondwana and began to move north towards Baltica and Laurentia, opening

5856-510: The government of Quebec purchased the island from the forestry company Consolidated Bathurst Ltd. for $ 23,780,000. Anticosti was placed under management by the Ministry of Recreation, Hunting and Fishing ( ministère du Loisir de la Chasse et de la Pêche ) and in 1983 the process began to set up a working municipal structure. Today, about 60% is under management by Sépaq and since April 2001, 572 km (221 sq mi) has been designated as

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5952-489: The island became property of the Stockwell brothers who formed a forestry company two years later. But they were unsuccessful and the company lasted only five years. By the 1890s, the fish and wildlife of the island had been almost eradicated through the new locals' indiscriminate slaughter. In 1895, Anticosti was sold for $ 125,000 to French chocolate maker Henri Menier who also leased the shore fishing rights. Menier named

6048-619: The island was divided among his three sons and the Jolliet family retained ownership until 1763 when the island became part of British North America under the terms of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War . That same year, the island was annexed to Newfoundland until 1774 when it was returned to Lower Canada and annexed again to Newfoundland from 1809 to 1825. It became a part of Quebec (as Lower Canada came to be called) at

6144-469: The island's 70 m (230 ft) high Vauréal Falls after the town of Vauréal in France where he owned a home. He constructed the entire village of Port-Menier , built a cannery for packing fish and lobsters , and attempted to develop its resources of lumber, peat and minerals. Many of the original houses still stand today. Furthermore, he converted the island into a personal game preserve and introduced nonindigenous animals for this purpose, including

6240-521: The island's shores and swim up several rivers of the island. Some 221 bird species, distributed among 21 avian families, have been observed on Anticosti Island. It is home to nearly 60% of the known breeding sites of the bald eagle in the province of Quebec. Because of its untamed wilderness and abundant wildlife, Anticosti Island is known for its hunting, fishing and outdoor opportunities and it attracts some 3,000 to 4,000 hunters per year. Most of Anticosti Island (4,213 km or 1,627 sq mi)

6336-412: The island. The Utica Shale, a stratigraphical unit of Middle Ordovician age that is potentially rich in shale gas reserves, underlies the Anticosti Islands and extends to surrounding areas in Quebec , Ontario and much of northeastern United States. On February 8, 2011, the citizen group "Non au Pétrole et au Gaz au Québec" released one of the biggest petitions in Quebec history against fracking in

6432-461: The keepers of the lighthouses erected by the Canadian government. The entire island constitutes one municipality known as L'Île-d'Anticosti . Due to more than 400 shipwrecks off its coasts, Anticosti Island is sometimes called the "Cemetery of the Gulf".< Anticosti Island is part of the eastern St. Lawrence lowlands. It is 222 km (138 mi) long and has a maximum breadth of 56 km (35 mi) — 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 times as large as

6528-454: The name of this island Enticosty (1625) and Antycosty (1632). The name in French is Île d’Anticosti . Anticosti Island is located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence at the edge of St. Lawrence River estuary . At 7,943 km (3,067 sq mi) in size, the island has a length of 222 km and a maximum width of 56 km, its highest peak rises to 306 m. It is the 90th largest island in the world and 20th largest island in Canada . Anticosti Island

6624-408: The north and south shores. Topographically, Anticosti Island can be divided into three distinct regions: two lowland areas, rarely exceeding 150 metres (490 ft) in elevation, in the eastern and western thirds of the island linked along the coast; and a central highland forming a plateau that rises to just over 300 m (980 ft). This plateau is an unidirectional structure slightly tilted to

6720-548: The ophiuroids ("brittle stars") and the first sea stars . Nevertheless, the arthropods remained abundant; all the Late Cambrian orders continued, and were joined by the new group Phacopida . The first evidence of land plants also appeared (see evolutionary history of life ). In the Middle Ordovician, the trilobite-dominated Early Ordovician communities were replaced by generally more mixed ecosystems, in which brachiopods, bryozoans, molluscs, cornulitids , tentaculitids and echinoderms all flourished, tabulate corals diversified and

6816-455: The owner of Anticosti Island. He used and maintained it for a time but eventually decided it was not an economically viable operation and sold it to the Wayagamack Pulp and Paper Company in 1926 for $ 6,000,000. For the next five decades, the island was used almost exclusively by forestry companies which harvested timber and built some infrastructure, mainly roads, but abandoned the villages at English Bay and Fox Bay. Wayagamack's timber production

6912-526: The province of Prince Edward Island . Its coastline is 520 km (320 mi) long, and is rocky and dangerous, offering little shelter for ships except in Gamache, Ellis, and Fox Bays. There are large shoals to the south. The largest lake on the island is Lake Wickenden , which feeds the Jupiter River. There are numerous rivers on Anticosti, many of which flow through deep gorges and canyons to

7008-535: The province of Quebec with 128,000 signatures thinking it would prevent the oil and gas exploration on Anticosti. In June 2011, the Quebec firm Pétrolia claimed to have discovered about 30 billion barrels of oil on the island of Anticosti, which is the first time that significant reserves have been found in the province. In February 2014, Premier of Quebec Pauline Marois announced that the provincial government would help finance two exploratory shale gas operations as

7104-474: The same rock beds in North Wales in the Cambrian and Silurian systems, respectively. Lapworth recognized that the fossil fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian systems, and placed them in a system of their own. The Ordovician received international approval in 1960 (forty years after Lapworth's death), when it was adopted as an official period of

7200-589: The sea is the Honguedo Strait located on the south side of Anticosti Island and the Gaspé Peninsula . The Jacques Cartier Strait is approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) wide. Jacques Cartier Strait was officially named for the French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1934 by the Geographic Board of Quebec to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his arrival in North America. Prior to this, it

7296-400: The sea level dropped, and the vast shallow intra-continental Ordovician seas withdrew, which eliminated many ecological niches. When they returned, they carried diminished founder populations that lacked many whole families of organisms. They then withdrew again with the next pulse of glaciation, eliminating biological diversity with each change. Species limited to a single epicontinental sea on

7392-426: The sea, and about 49% of genera of fauna disappeared forever; brachiopods and bryozoans were greatly reduced, along with many trilobite , conodont and graptolite families. The most commonly accepted theory is that these events were triggered by the onset of cold conditions in the late Katian, followed by an ice age , in the Hirnantian faunal stage, that ended the long, stable greenhouse conditions typical of

7488-512: The second largest of the five major extinction events in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that became extinct. The only larger one was the Permian–Triassic extinction event . The extinctions occurred approximately 447–444 million years ago and mark the boundary between the Ordovician and the following Silurian Period. At that time all complex multicellular organisms lived in

7584-425: The shells of most molluscs , dissolved rapidly on the sea floor after death. Unlike Cambrian times, when calcite production was dominated by microbial and non-biological processes, animals (and macroalgae) became a dominant source of calcareous material in Ordovician deposits. The Early Ordovician climate was very hot, with intense greenhouse conditions and sea surface temperatures comparable to those during

7680-464: The site is endowed with exceptionally well-preserved, abundant and diverse fossil fauna. This Anticosti fauna represents the first mass extinction of animal life on a global scale, 447 – 437 million years ago, at the end of the Ordovician period. The Vauréal River, with its source in Lake Vauréal, flows 25 km, south then northeast, in the eastern part of the island. The salmon go up the river to

7776-433: The south, and is characterized by rolling cuestas . The rocks exposed on the island form a continuous sedimentary stratum more than 2,000 m (6,600 ft) thick. These are the most complete strata in eastern North America of the Ordovician and Silurian periods. The main rivers are: South shore of Anticosti Island (from west to east): North shore of Anticosti Island (from west to east): Anticosti Island has

7872-442: The substantial offer, the promise of thousands of new jobs, and the fact that there were no legal methods to block the sale, the suspicions remained. A committee was set up to investigate the affair but concluded that "there was no evidence to indicate that the project has other than a commercial purpose". However, when the deadline to purchase the island passed on 15 September 1938, the offer expired and controversy died out. In 1974,

7968-492: The sun's rays from the proposed Ordovician ring system, which also caused the Ordovician meteor event , may have also led to the glaciation. As the southern supercontinent Gondwana drifted over the South Pole, ice caps formed on it, which have been detected in Upper Ordovician rock strata of North Africa and then-adjacent northeastern South America, which were south-polar locations at the time. As glaciers grew,

8064-577: The time period from c. 450 Ma to c. 443 Ma. The Rawtheyan, the second last of the Ashgill ages, was from c. 449 Ma to c. 445 Ma. It is in the Katian Age of the ICS's Geologic Time Scale . During the Ordovician, the southern continents were assembled into Gondwana , which reached from north of the equator to the South Pole . The Panthalassic Ocean, centered in the northern hemisphere, covered over half

8160-547: The tourist season. The Henri-Menier Road or Transanticostienne Road, the island's unpaved main road, stretches from Port-Menier to the eastern tip, with numerous forest roads branching off to provide access to various tourist locations and logging concessions. Car rental is available in Port-Menier. Every summer from 1924 to 1928, Brothers Marie-Victorin and Rolland-Germain explored the Anticosti-Minganie,

8256-399: The trinucleids developed a broad pitted margin around their head shields. Some trilobites such as Asaphus kowalewski evolved long eyestalks to assist in detecting predators whereas other trilobite eyes in contrast disappeared completely. Molecular clock analyses suggest that early arachnids started living on land by the end of the Ordovician. Although solitary corals date back to at least

8352-589: The two botanists made many discoveries, including Sececio pseudo-arnica var. rollandii or Senecio rollandii as well as the Mingan thistle Cirsium minganense and Botrychium minganense. The botanists explored the coasts of Anticosti Island aboard a refurbished old fishing vessel , the Virginia. The archives of the University of Montreal present on Flickr: Anticosti, a land of immense spaces, the sea all around and

8448-471: The villages at English Bay and Fox Bay. Most of the inhabitants, however, continued to be the few keepers of the island's many lighthouses. Because of the number of shipwrecks around the island, stores of provisions were also maintained around the island for sailors who might be washed ashore. In 1882, the Parish of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption was founded, a term referring to Cartier's name for the island. In 1884,

8544-505: The western and central parts. For thousands of years, Anticosti Island was the territory of the indigenous peoples who lived on the mainland and used it as a hunting ground. The Innu called it Notiskuan , translated as "where bears are hunted" and the Mi'kmaq called it Natigôsteg , meaning "forward land". The French explorer Jacques Cartier sailed along its shore in the summer of 1534. He provided its first written description and named it Isle de l'Assomption , because he reached it on

8640-592: Was also known as Détroit Saint-Pierre (by Cartier himself on August 1, 1534, the day of St. Peter), Labrador Channel (until 1815), and Mingan Passage. 49°58′N 62°47′W  /  49.967°N 62.783°W  / 49.967; -62.783 Ordovician The Ordovician, named after the Welsh tribe of the Ordovices , was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879 to resolve a dispute between followers of Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison , who were placing

8736-537: Was closed off by the Late Ordovician, Iapetus Ocean , and the new Rheic Ocean . For most of the Late Ordovician life continued to flourish, but at and near the end of the period there were mass-extinction events that seriously affected conodonts and planktonic forms like graptolites . The trilobites Agnostida and Ptychopariida completely died out, and the Asaphida were much reduced. Brachiopods , bryozoans and echinoderms were also heavily affected, and

8832-554: Was distributed widely during peak sea levels in the Sandbian. Some new cystoids and crinoids appeared. It was long thought that the first true vertebrates (fish — Ostracoderms ) appeared in the Ordovician, but recent discoveries in China reveal that they probably originated in the Early Cambrian . The first gnathostome (jawed fish) may have appeared in the Late Ordovician epoch. Chitinozoans, which first appeared late in

8928-495: Was limited to the Iapetus margin of Laurentia; elsewhere, the pattern was of rifting in back-arc basins followed by remerger. This reflected episodic switching from extension to compression. The initiation of new subduction reflected a global reorganization of tectonic plates centered on the amalgamation of Gondwana. The Taconic orogeny , a major mountain-building episode, was well under way in Cambrian times. This continued into

9024-436: Was still seeking a private partner. On June 4, 2013, the citizen group "Non au Pétrole et au Gaz au Québec", realizing that fracking continued to be a viable method of oil extraction on Anticosti, released another petition that garnered 26,000 signatures against fracking, exploration and exploitation of oil and gas on Anticosti Island and asked for a moratorium and an environmental evaluation. Geological engineer Marc Durand gave

9120-476: Was successful until the Great Depression when the paper market collapsed. The island property was taken over by Consolidated Paper Corporation Limited in 1931, but they showed little interest in it and put it up for sale. Offers came from Canadian, American, British, French and Belgian parties. In July 1937, an offer was received from a consortium of Dutch and German capitalists who intended to build

9216-532: Was traditionally broken into Early (Tremadocian and Arenig ), Middle ( Llanvirn (subdivided into Abereiddian and Llandeilian) and Llandeilo ) and Late ( Caradoc and Ashgill) epochs. The corresponding rocks of the Ordovician System are referred to as coming from the Lower, Middle, or Upper part of the column. The Tremadoc corresponds to the ICS's Tremadocian. The Arenig corresponds to the Floian, all of

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