Category Archives: mountains

Telling stories about Irish Geology

Posted on 5 June, 2013 by Metageologist

I clearly remember the most important moment of my geological career. I was resting my back on a glacially-polished wall of gabbro, my feet in an Irish bog, talking to myself in the sunshine. As a young man with bushy hair … Continue reading →

Categories: Ireland, metamorphism, mountains, tectonics

The Grampian / Taconic orogeny in Ireland – when arcs attack

Posted on 20 March, 2013 by Metageologist

Ever since the plate tectonic paradigm-shift of the 1960s, geologists have strived to understand ancient rocks in terms of the movements of plates. The geology of north-western Ireland can be explained by what happened when a subduction zone ran out … Continue reading →

Categories: Ireland, metamorphism, mountains, subduction, tectonics

Scandinavian crust now in Alaska!

Posted on 2 March, 2013 by Metageologist

The face of the earth is ever changing. Plate tectonics is slowly but surely rearranging the locations and inter-connections of continents. However knowing this in the abstract doesn’t prepare you for the awed surprise of discovering that a section of … Continue reading →

Categories: mountains, tectonics

Cratons – old and strong

Posted on 19 December, 2012 by Metageologist

Cratons are pieces of continents that have been stable for a over a billion years. As earth’s plates drift along, mountains periodically rise and fall, plate boundaries appear and disappear. But cratons are like great-grandmothers at family gatherings, while younger … Continue reading →

Categories: eclogites, mountains, subduction, tectonics