UNESCO World Heritage | Anticosti’s candidacy made official by Ottawa

The inclusion of Anticosti Island on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been officially requested by Ottawa.

Posted at 4:25 p.m.

Jean-Thomas Léveillé

Jean-Thomas Léveillé
The Press

An official announcement will take place on February 25, indicated the municipality of L’Île-d’Anticosti in a notice sent to the media on Wednesday.

This island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence “constitutes the best natural laboratory in the world for the study of fossils and sedimentary strata dating from the Ordovician period. [de -488 à -443 millions d’années] and Silurian [de -443 à -416 millions d’années] writes Parks Canada in its description of Anticosti on the UNESCO website.

The island presents the “most complete fossiliferous record of this time”, says the federal agency, and its study “provides a better understanding of the profound climatic changes that the planet underwent at this time, as well as the extinction of consequent mass of species and the manner in which life subsequently resumed”.

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  • 9289 km2
    area of ​​Anticosti Island

    Parks Canada


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