merrion street

A new bedrock geology map of the island of Ireland is published today by the Geological Survey of Ireland in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland. The map is intended for educational purposes, while at the same time being sufficiently detailed for use as a technical overview of the bedrock geology of Ireland and a contribution to international projects. The map is innovative for one of its scale by representing the onshore and offshore bedrock geology together.

Speaking at the map launch today during the GeoEXPO in Newry, Minister for Natural Resources Fergus O’Dowd said “Importantly, the new map includes data gathered from a number of sources, compiled as part of EU funded initiatives. The map will be distributed to all schools, and the two geological surveys will be ensuring it is widely adopted.”

The map is also available as a free pdf download from www.gsi.ie and the geological data in ArcGIS geodatabase format will be available for download in the coming days.

ENDS

Note to Editors

The new 1:1,000,000 map is a simplification of the technical Bedrock Geological Map of Ireland 1:500,000 map, published in 2006 as a collaborative product between the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland and the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland under their Framework for Cooperation.

The new map data were initially served up online for the international OneGeology project (www.onegeology-europe.org) and EMODnet project (www.emodnet-geology.eu), but are here reworked to present the geological history and rocks of Ireland.

The map aims to be sufficiently attractive and easy to read to be useful in education, while at the same time being sufficiently detailed for use as a technical overview of the bedrock geology of Ireland and a contribution to international projects and derived map products.

The map launch took place at the Mourne Cooley Gullion GeoEXPO Geotourism Conference and Exhibition Fair in Newry.