21 December 2012

Friday fold: the Ross Sandstone

Posted by Callan Bentley

One of my former students, Tiffany M., shared this image from her field camp experience last summer:

Click to enlarge

That’s the Ross Sandstone. It is stratigraphically above the Clare Shale. The location is on the north coast of the Shannon River in Ireland. To access it, you should take the boat tour that departs from the town of Carrigaholt. The JMU field camp goes here for the sed/strat portion of camp to study a massive shallowing upward, basin fill succession which is wonderfully exposed along the coast.

According to one online resource,

After the Namurian strata were deposited, late Pennsylvanian and Early Permian Variscan folding and faulting deformed the basin-fill succession. In the area of the mouth of the Shannon estuary, the Namurian strata were deformed into east- to west-striking folds, modified by small north-trending tear faults.
(p. 561, penultimate paragraph)

Annotated, not that it really needs it:

Thanks to Tiffany for sharing the photo, and to Alan Pitts for providing additional background information.

And Happy Friday! Only four more wrapping paper folding days until Christmas!