Gaff Topsails EarthCache

The Gaff Topsail can be accessed at the above coordinates. It can be accessed by ATV on the old rail bed which is part of the Trans-Canada Trail. You won't need a 4X4 and you can get to within hiking distance if you have a vehicle with a bit off ground clearance. To log this cache you must answer 2 questions. Answers are to be email to the cache owner. The answers to all questions can be found by visiting the drumlin Gaff Topsail which are the coordinates of this Earth cache.

1. What is the approximate elevation in meters that the drumlin called Gaff Topsail rise above the central plateau?

2. What was the direction of the ice-flow in central Newfoundland in the last ice-age as evidenced from the scratches in the granite rock or the orientation of the drumlin?

The three tolts (local Newfoundland name) north of Buchans ( former mining town) are called The Topsails (Main, Gaff, Mizzen) because, from a distance, they resemble the upper sails of a three-masted ship or schooner which plied the waters off Newfoundland during the 1800’s  to the early 20st century. Glaciers helped shape these tolts in the last ice-age.

The Topsails takes its name from the surrounding landscape which includes Main Topsail, Mizzen Topsail, Gaff Topsail and Fore Topsail which taken as a whole is geologically classified as drumlins.

The surrounding intrusive igneous rock (granite) has been exposed by erosion by the last ice-age (probably the 2 previous ice-ages) and thousands of years of erosion by weather and rivers. Intrusive igneous rocks are formed when the melted rock (magma) slowly rises toward, but does not reach the surface. As these pockets of magma cool slowly underground, minerals crystallize and the magma solidifies, becoming intrusive igneous rock, like granite and gabbro. In the early 1990’s the province and local stone company developed a granite quarry in the Topsails area.

The Topsails rise 61 metres — 122 metres above the general surface of the central plateau of Newfoundland.

Mizzen topsail elevation 543 meters

Gaff Topsail elevation ?? meters 

Main Topsail elevation 440 meters

Foretopsail elevation 377 meters

An analysis of collected data revealed 3 separate ice flows in central Newfoundland but the latest ice-age ended approximately 10,500 - 13,000 years ago depending on which study you read and it was wide spread. Probably this was what lent to the final shape of the drumlins that is the Gaff Topsails as we know it today.