Discover Ancient Wonders on the Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador | National Geographic

[Music] Mistaken Point around us, missed underfoot, petrified. Deep time rises, and Wealth's to prod our souls here and there, breaking into sudden vow relief. 88% of Earth's history is called the Precambrian age. Mistaken Point is the only World Heritage site for that vast span of time.

What's so important about the reserve is that these fossils—they're the first large, complex, multicellular organisms known in the history of life. The main fossil site is absolutely amazing. Our particular sequence of rocks here is between 590 and 560 million years ago. They're preserved on the upper surfaces of the beds as imprints. You're walking across what once was a deep-sea ocean floor. It's quite amazing, as one person who said, it's like you're almost scuba diving over this very strange deep-sea ecological community.

[Music] The question arises: why did they evolve in that type of environment? There are so many unanswered questions. When you're physically in Mistaken Point, you can feel the power of the land. You can see the crashing of the rocks. You can use your imagination to imagine the immensity of the power that it took to thrust the ocean floor up onto the land.

I think I'll always be making work about Mistaken Point. I have such a strong attachment to that place. When I'm working on the surface of the things and I'm running it through the machine, I'm just building layers and layers and layers to think about 575 million years—like it's just so ancient that I can't even imagine what I can do as an artist. I try to translate that deep time and the passage of time in the layering of the work.

[Music] Back here in the Anthropocene, the mist is thickening to drizzle. The bedrock darkens, deepening the contrast. But shall we call this antique frond, part fern, part feather, part Art Nouveau, and brand new? Brea, urgent and enigmatic, as an Oracle.

[Music] You