The Burren ( BURR-ən; Irish: Boirinn, meaning 'rocky district') is a karst/glaciokarst landscape centred in County Clare, on the west coast of Ireland. It measures around 530 square kilometres (200 mi2), within the circle made by the villages of Lisdoonvarna, Corofin, Gort and Kinvara. The area includes such natural features as Mullaghmore hill and Ailladie cliffs, and historic monuments such as Poulnabrone dolmen and Caherconnell Stone Fort. Burren National Park covers a small part of the Burren and is the smallest of Ireland's eight National Parks, while the adjacent territory, including the Cliffs of Moher, is included in the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark.
Location
While the name is generally applied to the limestone uplands of northwestern Clare and adjacent lowlands and generally excludes the area of Clare shales to the southwest, the area's exact extent is not clearly defined, and geologically it extends into County Galway to both the north and northeast (see Geology below). The southeastern pocket of County Galway around Kinvara is usually included and is the base of many Burren organisations. The Burren is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and Galway Bay, with the Aran Islands representing a geological extension of the limestone hills that make up most of The Burren. According to one definition, the Burren extends south to a line from the coastal resort of Lahinch to Corofin and is delimited in the east by a line roughly from Kinvara to Kilmacduagh monastery, near Gort. Taken literally, this includes places like the town of Ennistymon and the Cliffs of Moher, which are more commonly considered to neighbour the Burren. In another definition, the agriculture focused "Burren Programme" defines the region as extending well into the Gort plain, encompassing inter alia Coole Park and the turloughs around it, while to the south it extends to Ruan and Crusheen, and in the southwest to the edge of Doolin as well as the routine Lisdoonvarna, Kilfenora and Corofin. Thus the size of the Burren varies between around 250 square kilometres (97 mi2) (the core area of exposed limestone), through 360 square kilometres (140 mi2) (taking in all limestone landscapes) and 560 square kilometers (including the about 200 square kilometres (77 mi2) of downland), depending on the definition. Roughly 60% of the uplands show exposed limestone pavement.
Climate The Burren has a temperate oceanic climate. Average air temperatures range from 15 °C (59 °F) in July to 4–6 °C (39–43 °F) in January, while the soil temperature does not usually drop below 6 °C (as an exception, in late 2010, there was a prolonged period of snow). Since grass will grow once the temperature rises above 6 °C, this means that The Burren (like the neighbouring Aran Islands) has one of the longest growing seasons in Ireland or Britain, and supports diverse and rich plant growth. The area has around 1,525 millimetres (60.0 in) of annual rainfall (more than twice the amount observed in eastern Ireland), with an average level of over 160 millimetres (6.3 in) monthly from October to January Late May is the sunniest time, and also a good time to view flowers, with the gentians and avens peaking (but orchid species blooming later). During counter-guerrilla operations in The Burren in 1651–52, Edmund Ludlow stated, "(Burren) is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him...... and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing."[2][3]
Geology
Stratigraphy The area is formed from a thick succession of sedimentary rocks, largely limestones but also including sandstones, mudstones and siltstones. All of the solid rocks exposed at the surface are of Carboniferous age though they are underlain at depth by Old Red Sandstone of Devonian age which in turn overlies rocks of Lower Palaeozoic age. None of the pre-Carboniferous rocks is seen at the surface in the area. The limestones, which date from the Visean stage of the early Carboniferous, formed as sediments in a tropical sea approximately 325 million years ago. The strata contain fossil corals, crinoids, sea urchins and ammonites. This bed of limestone is up to 800 metres thick. In the north and west it lies on a shelf of Galway granite which supported the upper layers, preventing shifts like those that created the "twisted" hills Knockanes and Mullaghmore. The limestone also extends below Galway Bay out to the Aran Islands and to the east into the Gort plain. Later in the Carboniferous (c. 318 million years ago), the limestone was covered by darker sand and mud that later turned into shale (the lower "Clare Shales") and sandstone (the upper "Millstone Grit"). These layers reached a thickness of up to 330 metres (1,080 ft) in north Clare. These top layers protected the underlying limestone from erosion for millions of years before being largely stripped away by glaciers, except in the south west, where they still extend from Doolin to Slieve Elva, Lisdoonvarna, Kilfenora and to the western shore of Lake Inchiquin. One "island" of shale is the hill Poulacapple, southwest of Ballyvaughan, where an upland moor has formed on top of the impermeable shale layers. The local geological succession comprises the following formations some of which are subdivided into various members. The youngest rocks are at the start of the list, the oldest at the bottom. The first three listed are of Namurian age and are a mix of mudstones, sandstones and siltstones, the remainder are Visean age limestones.
Central Clare Group Gull Island Formation Clare Shale Formation Slievenaglasha Formation Lissylisheen Member Ballyelly Member Fahee North Member Balliny Member Burren Formation Ailwee Member Maumcaha Member Hawkhill Member Fanore Member Black Head Member Tubber Formation Finavarra Member Castlequarter Member Newtown Member Fiddaun Member Cregmahon Member
Quaternary
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