Cliffs Of Moher

The location I have chosen is one of the world's most unique coastal features: The Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland. Locally known as the "Cliff of Ruins" and regarded as a national symbol. Ireland is notorious for being below sea level; as such the 234 yard high cliffs, stretching nearly 5 miles along the Atlantic Ocean are visually shocking, a sudden sheer drop to the water below. The Cliffs of Moher and Burren Landscape (N/A) States " For millions of years afterwards sand and mud were washed on top of them and these sediments formed shale and flagstones, which can be best seen at the cliffs of Moher, where they plunge 700 feet to the sea and extend for five miles".

Three hundred square meters of the cliffs, consisting of limestone, namurian shale, and sand stone, have been sculpted by the acid rain into a natural pavement pattern known as "farren" which are crisscrossed by vertical grykes (cracks which stretch for hundreds of yards and suddenly end or disappear under superficial deposits). The rain eventually dissolves the limestone and creates natural caves with rivers flowing under the shelf. The Cliffs of Moher are thus a point of great interest for speleologists and novice cave spelunkers, which flock in droves during the summer months when the caves dry and are ripe for exploration.

The most famous of her caves is the "Aillwee"; formed solely by the melt waters of a pre-historic ice age. She cuts in the heart of Moher and its mini Aillwee Mountain, revealing the landscape underneath the spectacular site. The story of Aillwee cave began millions of years ago when streams sinking underground started dissolving channels through the grykes. From one million years until fifteen thousand years ago, Ireland's climate alternated between artic temperatures and mainland Europe's warmer temperatures. This consistent, drastic freezing and melting over the centuries allowed the water above to crash though and create an underground channel, enlarging the passages, bringing with it sand and silts testifying to the modern eye that ancient yet brief moment in geological history.

The Cliffs of Moher serve as a wealth of testimonials to such periods in time, the contemporary visitor can view well over three hundred million years of strata, fossilized river patterns impressed into the base of the cliffs. The limestone was laid during the close of the Lower Carboniferous period. For millions of years since that time sand and mud has been washed atop, leaving sediments formed of shale and flagstones. The constant flow of shale has created some of the largest free hanging stalactites in the world, nearly 7 meters in length, the longest in the northern hemisphere

The water channels are not however, the only fossils to be found. Moher's vertical drop provides a haven for birds, being home to over thirty thousand and has naturally supported twenty-nine different seafowl species for millions of years. Cliffs of Moher

...