The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
THE antiquity of life in county Clare has been underlined this week with the discovery of abandoned fossil burrows dating back 330 million years. The burrows, which date some 100 million years before the appearance of the first dinosaurs, have been found in limestone rock on the coast of Doolin in County Clare. Dr. Eamon Doyle, geologist for the Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Global Geopark and Clare County Council, who made the discovery, says the burrows were excavated by marine creatures in a very shallow sea and are the oldest known occurrence of this type of fossil burrow anywhere in the world. At that time Clare was located near the Equator and looked and felt a lot like the tropical Bahamas today. Dr. Doyle explained, “The abandoned burrows are filled with coarse sand made of fossil debris and were most likely filled in during a storm event that moved large amounts of coastal sand around. This storm may …
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