Prim Point Lightstation, Nova Scotia

I think you’re all aware at this point how much I love basalt, whether pillowed, fractured, or eroded. Combine it with ocean coastline and conifer trees, and I’m smitten. Lucky for me, this stretch of coast in Nova Scotia has all of the above. Formed during late Triassic eruptions concurrent with the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea just over 200 million years ago, the basalt visible along the shore started as viscous lava that crept downhill from long fissures erupting from the volcanic North Mountains. The eruptions near Point Prim – and along the whole mountain range from Cape Split to the north down to Brier Island in the south – cooled slowly, fracturing into the polyagonal patterns of columnar basalt that I love. Most of the basalt at Point Prim does not have the characteristic defined columns since it has been rounded and eroded from wave action and glaciation but it does have unique liesegang rings however, which are circular patterns of chemical weathering left by glacial deposits of minerals.

Prim Point also has a great lighthouse, a squared tower with vertical stripes of red and white. As if the area wasn’t scenic enough, I was treated to one of the best sunsets I’ve seen – the colors blazed across the sky. After the sun dipped below the horizon the orange and pink reflecting off the clouds intensified and the sky appeared as though it has been streaked with paint. I kept moving around the point and took well over a hundred photos, each one seemingly more impressive than the last.