This field guide complements the annual field meeting of the Irish Quaternary Association (IQUA) held in North Mayo and Sligo, September 20th–22nd 2013.
The IQUA field trip to North Mayo in 2013 draws on a long tradition of archaeological and palaeoecological research in the area. It is over twenty years since the last IQUA trip to the region (Coxon 1991) and the intervening period has seen important work on the Quaternary and Holocene palaeoenvironments of the region and new archaeological programmes of research. It is thus an opportune time for IQUA to revisit North Mayo.
The Quaternary sites described in this guide both retrace previous work and attempt to add to the sum of sites and sediments known of this intriguing and important area. The sediment sequences visited by this trip at Belderg Pier (west) and Glenulra provided key early dates and sedimentological information that helped shape glaciomarine models. To this observable geologic evidence, the interpretation of offshore landorms patterns in Donegal Bay is added here, and a new synthesis of both data sets is advanced for discussion during the field trip.
The new field guide updates the 1991 field guide edited by Peter Coxon (Coxon ed 1991). The field sites are covered by Sheets 23 and 24 of the 1:50,000 Discovery Series Maps