I am leaving Ireland today. It was an interesting and versatile trip. I saw a wide variety of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. Ireland is a good geotrip destination but one should prepare for bad weather and surprisingly long distances. Especially if you mostly stay in one place like I did. I spent only two nights out of Dublin but visited places in all directions from the capital of Ireland. Hence, I covered about 3,500 kilometers in 10 days. That’s probably not wise. It takes lots of fuel and wastes precious time. However, the locations I visited mostly formed a clusters that are far away from each other in all corners of the island (Antrim, Waterford, Connemara, Wicklow, etc.). Visiting them all means lots of driving anyway.
My days were long and it was very hard to find some time for blogging. However, I took more than 600 photos, most of them geological. So I will take you along to a virtual geotrip to Ireland when I am back home again.
Here is an appetizer from Ireland:
These folds in Loughshinny (north of Dublin) with angular and overturned hinges are sedimentary rocks (turbidite) from the Carboniferous. They are folded by the Variscan orogeny. If you plan to visit the place, make sure that it is a low tide, otherwise the waves will be pounding the cliff face and it will not be possible to take a photo like this.