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Caves at St. Martins
Where there are Triassic landscapes in southern New Brunswick, tourists gather to see them. One of the most famous scenic spots in New Brunswick is in the small village of St. Martins where picturesque sea caves have formed in Permian-Triassic sandstone and conglomerate. The rocks of St. Martins are about 250 million years old, and belong to the Honeycomb Point, Quaco and Echo Cove formations. Sea caves are in the red Honeycomb Point Formation that lies below the coarse boulder conglomerate of the Quaco Formation. Sea caves are caused by physical erosion, unlike chemical solution caves in karst landscapes where carbonate bedrock has been dissolved by natural acids in rain and groundwater. Waves on the Bay of Fundy pound relentlessly on the coastal cliffs and the sea caves have formed as shallow features carved into sandstone. In sedimentary rocks like these the caves have formed along rock layers. You can see this where the boulder conglomerate meets the red sandstone. The cave floor is on the same angle as the rock layers.
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