Green Gardens

The first part of the trail crosses the broad barren valley of Trout River Gulch, strewn with rocks from the Tablelands by glaciers. A fault runs the length of the valley beneath the rubble. South of the fault of the mantle rocks of the Tablelands; to the north are deformed and metamorphosed gabbro and other rocks from the ocean crust. At the coast, a panorama of lush vegetation and bold scenery betrays a change in the underlying rock.

Along the shore line at Green Gardens are sea stacks and caves eroded from the cliffs of basalt. The dark gray and reddish lavas flow from a Hawaiian-type volcanoes in the Iapetus Ocean. These volcanic rocks were transported as one of the slices ploughed up by the closing ocean.

The basalt cliffs contains the bulbous outlines of pillow lavas, a feature typical of molten rock that cooled quickly underwater. They alternate with basalt flows fractured into columnar joints, usually the result of slower cooling in the air. From this evidence, geologists have suggested that the lava was extruded very close to sea level.

The rocks here are rich in calcium, potassium, sodium, and aluminium, and a fertile soil has developed. These are veritable Green Gardens-- natural meadows lush with grasses and other herbaceous plants--a traditional summer pasture for sheep.

Old Volcanoes

Waves, currents, and ice have shaped the volcanic rock at Green Gardens into a coastline of the sea stacks, cliffs, and caves.

Submarine Lava

Lava oozing from underwater fissures chilled rapidly and produced the rounded pillow lava in this headland. Sandwiched by them is a band of air-cooled basalt flows.