[1] The abrasive action of the tides, considered to be the world's highest, constantly exposes fossils on the cliff faces, shores and seabed.

As the continental plates moved apart, they ruptured, and blocks subsided or rose along fault lines creating complex, twisted layers of rock turned at odd angles.

[1][3][6] The orange and red sandstones visible at Wasson Bluff formed as rivers swollen by intense rains carried coarse sediments from nearby highlands into the Fundy Basin.

[1][3][6] On April 10, 1984, veteran fossil hunter and amateur geologist, Eldon George, made a discovery that drew the world's attention to Wasson Bluff.

[4][7] In January 1986, American paleontologists Paul Olsen and Neil Shubin announced they had recovered hundreds of thousands of bones at Wasson Bluff, the largest fossil find in North America dating from the geological period 200 million years ago known as the Triassic-Jurassic boundary.

The next summer he and Paul Olsen, along with Hans-Dieter Sues of the Royal Ontario Museum and William Amaral, Charles Schaff, and Steven Orzack of Harvard University, uncovered 12 complete skulls of trithelodonts, a discovery that has helped scientists gain a better understanding of the origins of mammals.