Inisheer is the smallest and most eastern island of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay.
Photo by Kloepschen
The island is an extension of The Burren. The terrain of the island is composed of limestone pavements with crisscrossing cracks known as "grikes", leaving isolated rocks called "clints". The limestones date from the Visean period (Lower Carboniferous), formed as sediments in a tropical sea approximately 350 million years ago, and compressed into horizontal strata with some kind of fossils.
Glaciation following the Namurian phase facilitated greater denudation. The result is that Inisheer is one of the finest examples of a Glacio-Karst landscape in the world. The effects of the last glacial period (the Midlandian) are most in evidence, with the island overrun by ice during this glaciation. The impact of earlier Karstification (solutional erosion) has been eliminated by the last glacial period, so any Karstification now seen dates from approximately 10,000 years ago and the island Karst is thus recent.
Solutional processes have widened and deepened the grykes of the limestone pavement. Pre-existing lines of weakness in the rock (vertical joints) contribute to the formation of extensive fissures separated by clints (flat pavement like slabs). The rock karstification facilitates the formation of sub-terrainean drainage.
Sources of text: in extracts Wikipedia
On the listed coordinates you can find a good example for fossils. The fossils formation is not yet complete. Usually the science calls it "subfossil". Subfossil (as opposed to fossil) is a term applied to the remains of a once-living organism in cases where the remains are not considered to be fully fossil.
In order to log this cache you must send a message via my profile with answers to the two tasks. I'll ask you to give me 3 days to confirm your answers, but you can also log right away, although I will delete logs if I haven't recieved any answers.
1. Describe the fossils at the listed coordinates. What kind of fossils you can see most? What colour are they? Are they 2- or 3-dimensional (trace or transitional fossil)? What is the average size of the fossils?
2. Describe in your own words, how does the process of fossilization perform.
Please add no photos of the fossils to your logs. Photos of you and/or your GPS - e.g. with the wreck MV Plassy in the background - are welcome.