Tablelands

The Tablelands is the most interesting, geological feature in the Gros Morne Park. This mountainous block is a slice of rock that once lay beneath the Iapetus Ocean. It is a sample of the Earth's crust and upper mantle.

The yellow cliffs and eroded slopes of the Tablelands consists of peridotite rock from the upper mantle. These dense rocks are tens of kilometers above their usual position in the Earth's mantle. Their mineral composition is not suitable for plant growth.

Exposed surfaces of peridotite rock have weathered to a tan color, but freshly broken rock is a dark greenish-brown. Water under intense heat and pressure altered some of the original minerals to serpentine, giving the rock a green snake- skin pattern. Serpentine is so characteristic of transported ocean crust that these rocks are called ophiolites after the Greek words "ophis" and "lithos" meaning "serpent stone".

Wildlife on the Tablelands consists of snowshoe hare, caribou, rock ptarmigan, moose (moose do not live on top of these mountains but like to roam there), and many other animals.

Across the road from the barren Tablelands and in sharp contrast to its yellow mantle rock are the gray cliffs of the Lookout Hills. Which is another slice of ocean crust.