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Limestone.

The formation, erosion and weathering of limestone results in numerous features. The limestone which makes up the bedrock of much of the central plain of Ireland were laid down in a sea. This sea occupied the area of modern Ireland from about 350 million to 320 million years ago. The sea was warm and relatively shallow and would have been teeming with life. Many of the animals living in the sea had shells and skeletons made of lime. When they died this lime accumulated on the sea floor to make the limestone we see today. This limestone preserves shells of animals such as brachiopods, bivalves and gastropods and skeletons of corals and crinoids as fossils.

During the Ice age which chilled Ireland from about 2 million years ago until 10,000 years ago the country was covered in ice. Glaciers moved across the land carrying huge amounts of soil, sand and gravel with them from one place to another. Sometimes if the glaciers were large enough they picked up boulders of considerable size and deposited them when the ice melted. These blocks or boulders are termed erratics. Limestone blocks transported and deposited by the glaciers have undergone weathering and erosion of several forms. Ranging from frost shattering which occurs when water freezes and expands in small cracks in the rock to solution a process where the rock is virtually washed away by acidic rain water. Water lying in small depressions will therefore accentuate the shape and deepen the depression with the passing of time. This may result in a type of honey combed weathering which is seen here along the shoreline.



[The Rabbit] [The Badger] [Ivy] [Honeysuckle] [Moss] [Common Oak] [Pedunculate Oak] [Lichens] [Common Lime]
[The Hedgehog] [The Bramble] [The Chiffchaff] [The Frog Hopper] [Hawthorn] [Tree Roots]
[The Wood Mouse] [The Pigmy Shrew] [The Sycamore] [The Guelder Rose] [The Ash] [Gorse] [Hazel] [Tootworth]
[Goat Willow] [The Rowan] [Common White Beam] [Spindle] [Dog Rose] [The Blackthorn] [Birds] [Grasshoppers & Crickets] [Dragonfly & Damesify] [Feral Goat] [Silver Birch] [Pine Martin] [Fungi] [Lough Carra] [Brown Trout] [The Mute Swan]
[The Otter] [Limestone] [Holly] [The Fox] [The Mighty Oak] [Common Polypody] [Treecreeper] [The Irish Stoat]
[The Hornbeam] [Bats]