Colourful sandstone in Jordan with a beautiful offset of layers and an expressively dynamic dark red form that reminds me of a bird flying up into the air.

Photo by Barbara Harsch, Brussels
1998

Muckross Head, Co. Donegal
Layer-cake Carboniferous sandstone, wave-cut platform; brooding Slieve League behind.

Photo by Brian McConnell, GSI
July 2009

Chalk cliffs, showing cliff-fall at Yport, Normandy, France.

Photo by Catherine Bushe, Co. Dublin
16th April, 2009

Haleakala Crater, Maui, Hawaii

Photo by Caitríona Fogarty, Dublin
3rd October, 2008

Not so far from Bonifacio (Corsica, region of France) there is a little island called Lavezzi, reachable with a boat.
It's an amazing place because of the shapes of its rocks: they are rounded and smoothed, as someone had used an emery paper on them.
There were a lot of nice rock formations so it was difficult to chose a pic from the multitude but I thnk this one gives the idea of what you can find on Lavezzi.

Photo by Chiara Licciulli, Milan
Summer 2007

 Iceberg, seen from the deck of the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, Southern Ocean

Photo by Dave Walsh, Co. Wexford
14th February 2007

Crevasses at the end of the Glacier du Tour, France

Photo by David Chew, Dublin
September 2005

The distinctive limestone pavement covering much of the Burren is composed of massive blocks of limestone called clints separated by fissures called grikes. Such forms are the result of several Millennia of exposure to the mildly acidic action of rainwater, and are collectively known as karren features.

Photo by David MacDonald, Co. Galway
10th July, 2009

Grykes on Inis Mór.
The Aran Islands are an extension of the Carboniferous limestone of the Burren. I observed here, beside Dún Aengus, that the most dominant grykes ran from north to south with secondary less developed systems at right angles to it. This photo was taken facing south, where beyond the cliff, on a clear day the coast of County Kerry is visible.

Photo by Edwina Guckian, Co. Leitrim
14th April 2009

Lava Stalagtites
Interior of active lava tube on flank of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii.

Photo by Eoin MacCraith, GSI
March 2008

Burren National Park near Slieve Roe Co Clare.
Picture shows a glacial erratic rock through a limestone wall.These erratics were debris carried in to the area by glaciers. When the glaciers melted these rocks were left behind.

Photo by Fergus Hasset, Co. Galway
September 2009

Bright green algae growth on the Sligo coastline rich in green colour on a summers day.

Photo by  John Gaffney, Co. Cork
June 2005

The Frasassi Caves, located in central Italy near the town of Genga, are large cave complex spanning some 13 kilometers of known caves. It is estimated that they entire cave system may be upwards of 35 kilometers long. The Frasassi underground caves, extending over 30 km, over 8 different geological levels, represent one of the world's most impressive underground excursions.

The mountain group of Valmontagna and Frasassi is characterised by a folding geological motif, with a wide limestone anticlinal corresponding to the orographic relief, and narrow synclinal which correspond to valleys and plans. Water circulation constituted by river Sentino entered these geological structures, after orogenesis events, helped by faults and “diaclasi”(wide cracks in rocks).

Photo by Michal Bergel, Cork, June 2007

Devonian fluvial sandstones and conglomerates on the shore at Cushendall, Co. Antrim.

Photo by Mike Simms, Belfast

A clint-grike system which has eroded into a limestone plateau in the Burren

Photo by Pascal Ungerer, Cork
10th April 2009

The foreshore shows sections of Lower Devonian rocks - mainly red mudstones, now metamorphosed to slate, siltstones and sandstones which experienced Variscan deformation during the Permo-Triassic age.

It is thought that they were originally laid down in mudflats and floodplains associated with lakes. Some fossil fish remains have been found here and there may have been an occasional connection between these lakes and the nearby sea. The Pleistocene raised beach platform here is backed by a fossil cliff line. The raised beach platform is being cut back by wave action.

Photo by Phil Hemsley, Totnes, Devon

Young on old (glacial leftovers on Dalradian bedrock - Ben Levy Grit Formation schists and metavolcanics) with Mweelrea and Benchoona in the distance.

Tully, Renvyle Peninsula, Connemara, October 2009.

Photo by Sarah Gatley, GSI

Steeply dipping beds of Carboniferous limestone and mudstone, Ballybunion strand, Co.Kerry

September, 2006

Photo by Stephen McCarthy, Co. Wicklow

Doon point Rathlin Island, Basalt columns of similar nature to The Giants causeway, the columns at Doon Point are not as uniform as the causeway. These colums formed around the the same era as the Giants Causeway

Photo by Thomas McDonnell, Co. Antrim

Rocks on the strand near Belmullet, Co. Mayo

February 2005

Photo by John Gaffney, Co. Cork

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