irish geology for beginners

fguihen

i imagine to stand a chance of finding any decent fossils in ireland, you would need to understand some geology to be able to identify rocks from particular periods which could be potential fossil beds.

for someone with almost no geologic knowledge, where do i start??

Galvasean

If you're college bound all the big colleges (UCD, Trinity etc.) have geology modules.

fguihen

unfortunately ( or fortunately perhaps) i finished up in college a few years ago and am not going back anytime soon. was hoping i could be directed towards a book/books teaching the subject from the ground up (geddit!)

Canis_major

A few web links that might be of interest to you, (or anyone interested in fossils in general!)
http://www.ukfossils.co.uk/guides.htm
http://www.gsi.ie/Programmes/Heritage/Exhibitions/Irish+Geological+Heritage+Exhibition+Panels.htm

http://www.geology.ie/ Irish geological society, fieldtrips etc.

Here's a great one http://gis3.dcmnronline.ie/imf5104/imf.jsp?site=GSI_Simple
Bedrock geology, palaeo, minerals etc all in a tidy GIS interface!

Palaeobiology textbook, free to download http://www.earth-pages.com/paleobiology.asp

Enjoy! hope its of some use.
oh and geologists are renowned for their terrible anti-humor :P
rock bottom jokes one might say...

starn

Ian Sanders from the Geology departmnt in TCD published a booklet last year Six Types of Comman Rock found in Ireland. Which was distributed free to all the primary schools in the country. Its quite good as a introduction to Irish geology and well worth reading if you can get a copy of it