New Survey of Clare Island, Volume 2: Geology

About this book

The first Clare Island Survey of 1909-11 was the most ambitious natural history project ever undertaken in Ireland and the first major biological survey of a specific area carried out in the world. The New Survey constitutes a fresh baseline study using up-to-date methodology to provide a comprehensive description of the island from its bedrocks to its biotic communities. The survey traces the history of human occupation and the impact of human activity on Clare Island. It has revealed almost a century of environmental change and will provide an invaluable source for future environmental monitoring.

This second volume examines the geology of Clare Island. The island's physical appearance today reflects a geological history of over 500 million years. Major geological boundaries, now expressed as faults, run through the island. Repeated movements along these faults have produced the complex distribution of rock types that continues to fascinate geological researchers. Articles in this volume provide an introduction to the geology of the island and its Silurian and Carboniferous rocks, interpret the age of the Ballytoohy Formation of the northern part of the island using fossil microflora, describe the enigmatic fossil Peltoclados clarus found in the Silurian rocks, discuss rocks that have intruded from considerable depth beneath the island and consider the history of the last two million years, the Quaternary period, using evidence from fossil pollen.

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