IGA Excursion to the Hook Peninsula, Co. Wexford on Saturday 25th September

Cambrian and Devono-Carboniferous palaeoenvironments of the Hook Peninsula, Co Wexford

Leader: Prof Peter Haughton (UCD School of Earth Sciences)

Date: Saturday, 25th September, 2021.

TO REGISTER please fill in the registration form HERE

Registration is on a first come, first served basis.
Please register by Saturday 18th September.

N.B. All attendees will be expected to follow Covid-19 government guidelines and the IGA Covid-19 guidelines.

ABSTRACT
A day-trip to examine aspects of the geology at the eastern of the Munster Basin with a focus on reconstructing environments of deposition across a range of settings – terrestrial, shallow marine and deep-sea. The Hook Head area is renowned for the quality of the rock exposures and the variety of the geology that encapsulates many of the important events in the Palaeozoic history of SE Ireland. The outcrops are all coastal and require short walks (up to 1 km) across fields and uneven rocky foreshores to access. We will combine thinking about physical sedimentary structures with evidence from trace fossils, palaeoecology and palaeocurrents to build up a picture of where we are on the depositional profile. In addition, we will consider the interesting post-depositional history of these rocks and the wider implications. There will be a quick stop at Fethard-on-Sea at lunchtime. The trip will finish at c. 5.30 pm to allow time for the return home.

MEETING POINT: Templetown, 10.30 am.
For anyone coming from Dublin via the M11/N11/R733, it is a two hour 15 minute drive.

ITINERARY (depending on weather and prevailing wind-direction)
– Stop 1: Templetown Bay: Cambrian distal basin floor deposits with extensive soft-sediment deformation and rare trace fossils as well as spectacular tectonic deformation. Contact with the Devonian Templetown Conglomerate – fault or unconformity? Old Red Sandstone provenance.
– Stop 2: Sandeel Bay: River deposits at the end of the Devonian. Interleaved floodplain and river channel deposits. Reconstructing river scale from fossilised bar forms. Late Devonian flora.
– Stop 3: Woarway Bay: Transgression of the shoreline. Variable energy coastal and shallow-marine deposits and mixed clastic-carbonate deposition. Deposition from tropical storm events. Use of bioturbation in inferring depositional position.
– Stop 4: Little Cove NW of Hook Head lighthouse: Contact between the Bullockpark Bay dolomite and Ballysteen Fm. Faults, fluids and wider significance for Irish-type Zn-Pb deposits.

Peter Haughton, our Leader, is a Professor of Sedimentology based in the UCD School of Earth Sciences. He is a graduate of TCD with a PhD from the University of Glasgow. He has worked in both the minerals and energy industries before joining UCD in 1996. His research interests lie in terrestrial and deep-water sedimentary processes, sediment provenance, stratigraphy and the interaction between tectonics and sedimentation.

REFERENCES
Klavins, S.D. (2004) Re-interpretation of Wexfordia hookense from the Upper Devonian of Ireland as an arborescent lycophyte. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 144, 275–287.
Sleeman,A.G., Higgs K. and Sevastopulo, G.D. (1983). The stratigraphy of the Late Devonian–Early Carboniferous rocks of south County Wexford. Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Ireland, 3, 141–158.
Sleeman, A. G., Johnston, I. S., Naylor, D. and Sevastopulo, G. D. (1974) The stratigraphy of the Carboniferous rocks of Hook Head, Co. Wexford. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.
Section B: Biological, Geological, and Chemical Science, 74, 227-243.
Tietzsch-Tyler, D., Sleeman, A.G. (1994). Geology of South Wexford: a geological description of South Wexford and adjoining parts of Waterford, Kilkenny and Carlow to accompany the Bedrock Geology 1:100,000 scale Map Series, Sheet 23, South Wexford. Geological Survey of Ireland