Welcome to Comenoole Beach! This small beach is the most western beach of Ireland. There is car park right next to Slea Head Drive (R559).
Note - Access may be restricted at high tide - check tide times beforehand.
At this location, you can observe the impact of shifting tectonic plates to rock layers.
The South of today’s Ireland, approximately from Dingle Bay to Dungarvan was part of a hugh massif, called Armorican Massif. South of Ireland, South of England, the Bretagne and the Central Massif was part of it. All this belonged to the microcontinent Armorica and existed around 650-550 million years ago … It rifted away from Gondwana towards Laurussia, both ancient supercontinents. 300 million years later both continents joined together to form the supercontinent Pangaea. Later they split up again and shaped the continents and oceans that we know from today.
Tectonic plates move in three different ways:
Convergent Boundary (Coming together) is a region of active deformation where two or more tectonic plates or fragments of the lithosphere (crust and mantle of the Earth) near the end of their life cycle. As a result of pressure, friction, and plate material melting in the mantle, earthquakes and volcanoes are common near destructive boundaries, where subduction zones or an area of continental collision (depending on the nature of the plates involved) occurs. Also, rock layers are folded and thrusted upwards.
Divergent Boundary (Spreading apart) is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other. Divergent boundaries within continents initially produce rifts which eventually become rift valleys.
Transform Boundary (Sliding past), is a type of fault whose relative motion is predominantly horizontal, in either a sinistral (left lateral) or dextral (right lateral) direction. Furthermore, transform faults end abruptly and are connected on both ends to other faults, ridges, or subduction zones. These faults neither create nor destroy lithosphere.
Your task:
At this beach, you find a fine example of one of the three moving types. Please observe the wall at the given coordinates.
- Describe which moving type you can identify. Please name the reasons for your decision.
- Can you identify any kind of layers? If yes, how are they stacked? Horizontal, vertical, something in between?
Please send your answers in English, German or Spanish language.
Sources:
- Geology for Dummies, Alecia M. Spooner, Geology for Dummies, Hoboken: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2011
- Wikipedia.org
- Miscellaneous webpages about geology