[NASA] A Bit of Gray on an Emerald Isle

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3. A Bit of Gray on an Emerald Isle

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May 16, 2025

Today’s story is the answer to the

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Though Ireland is known for the many

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that grace its grassy pastoral landscapes, there’s one corner of the

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where gray reigns supreme. In the

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, on the island’s west coast, what geologists describe as

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covers much of the rocky, treeless landscape.

The

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(Operational Land Imager) on

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captured this view of

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on May 16, 2025. The fossil-rich

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that makes up the gray outcrops was deposited about 325 million years ago during the

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, when what is now Ireland lay near the equator beneath warm, shallow seas. Although the limestone was initially deposited in flat, horizontal layers on the seafloor, it later buckled into gentle arch- and trough-shaped folds as

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collided during a mountain-building episode known as the

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These folds in the tilted rock layers and differences in their rate of erosion produced the terraced appearance that defines the Burren’s hills, with more erosion-resistant layers of rock persisting as ledges. Glacial activity also played a role in sculpting the landscape, scraping away soil and sediment to expose the limestone pavement and smoothing the region’s hills.

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May 16, 2025

Limestone is prone to

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that produces an irregular terrain known as

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, pockmarked with sinkholes, caves, and fissures called

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. Many grikes in the Burren collect soil and have become footholds where vegetation grows in the otherwise rocky landscape.

Individual grikes are too small to see in Landsat imagery, but networks of them have aligned along the rock layers, contributing to the concentric vegetation patterns visible in the image. Among the plants that you might find growing in them is the

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, the three-leaved clover that has become a

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With some luck, Trifolium dubium or Trifolium repens may even be found amidst the shamrock-shaped contours of Moneen Mountain, a 262-meter (860-foot) limestone hill visible in the image above. While there’s

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about what species is the true inspiration for shamrocks, these two clover species were among the favorites when Irish botanists were surveyed about the topic in the 1880s, according to the

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NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the 

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. Story by Adam Voiland.

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May 16, 2025

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References & Resources

• Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark
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  . Accessed March 16, 2026.
• Burren National Park
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  . Accessed March 16, 2026.
• Carnegie Museum of Natural History
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  Accessed March 16, 2026.
• Earth (2018, June 7)
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  . Accessed March 16, 2026.
• The Geological Society
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  . Accessed March 16, 2026.
• International Commission on Geoheritage (2026)
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  . Accessed March 16, 2026.
• National Geographic (2024, October 10)
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  . Accessed March 16, 2026.
• Smithsonian (2016, March 16)
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  . Accessed March 16, 2026.

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