UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage list is considered the highest accolade for commemorating the significance of the Earth's natural and cultural heritage. The core principle of World Heritage is the concept of outstanding universal value to all humanity. Of the criteria for inscribing a site on the list of World Heritage, criterion viii applies specifically to geoheritage, requiring that sites so recognized "be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant ongoing geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features" (UNESCO, 2007).
Only ten per cent of World Heritage sites have been inscribed, even in part, on the basis of criterion viii, and a mere 14 have been inscribed solely on that basis (Calder and Badman, 2009). The Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Fig. 1), inscribed on the list of the world's heritage in 2008, is one of these 14 sites.

Joggins Fossil Cliffs UNESCO World Heritage Site