Located on the summit of Corrán Tuathail, at 1,039m/3,414 ft This is Ireland's highest Earthcache.
Terrain and Difficulty rating reflect the actual terrain (Mountainous) and How long it would take doing this cache on its own. Please Enjoy!!
The following cache description is the work of Klaus23, the original owner of GCJ39P Corrán Tuathail (Ireland's Highest Cache) now maintained by Marcus in Kerry. Shamelessly copied by me. Thanks!
Please read it carefully and follow all the safety recommendations. Several people have died on this mountain - do not underestimate it! Be especially aware of the false and dangerous track that has developed at the summit. (See below for details.)
The Kerry Mountain Rescue Callout Statistic will give you an idea what can go wrong.
http://kerrymountainrescue.ie/callouts/
A hunt for this cache is a day's worth of time and effort, but a rewarding one as it takes you to the highest point in Ireland. The cache is designed for moderately experienced climbers, but it should be suitable for accompanied beginners with a decent endurance level. Corrán Tuathail forms part of the MacGillycuddy Reeks which which are closely associated with Ireland's premier beauty spot, Killarney, and surrounding County Kerry.
Corrán Tuathail Summit, behind the prominent 'Hags Tooth'
What's with the funny name?:
Most commonly anglicised as Carrauntohill (sometimes Carrauntual), Corrán Tuathail translates as "the inverted reaping hook" Another possible origin is a translation of "Carn tuathail", Toole's Cairn.
The MacGillycuddy's Reeks are named after a local chief and the name refers to the son of the servant of Saint Mo-Chuta, Mac Gilla Mochuta. Mo-Chuta is the Irish name of St. Carthage, the founder of the Celtic monastery of Lismore.
The MacGillycuddy Reeks are a challenging mountain range, and at the car park and at the top of the mountain there are memorials to people who died while climbing and walking in the area.
The peak can be approached from several directions but I have choosen two routes. Although the walk itself is moderate, the Devil's Ladder section is challenging as is the any of the Gullys. Weather conditions here can change very quickly. Appropriate precautions should be followed in terms of fitness, safety equipment carried and clothing/footwear worn.
There is a mountain safety guide which you can consult here. www.kerrymountainrescue.ie/safety/index.html
Please see here for info about routes
http://kerrymountainrescue.ie/carrauntoohil-route-descriptions/
You should strongly consider the following equipment necessary for this cache: Waterproof Boots, Warm Inner, Waterproof Outer Clothes, a change of Clothes to leave in your car, Water, Food, (and reserve food and water), GPS, OS Map, Compass, Hat, Gloves, Whistle, Mobile Phone, Hiking Stick, Torch and Survival Bag. Unless you're confident and experienced enough, it's a good idea not to do this on your own, and I would not consider this cache suitable for young children.
I found there is mobile phone coverage on most of the mountain and at the summit. In emergencies, Kerry Mountain Rescue can be contacted per telephone on 112/999 like other emergency services. They have a very useful and informative website here. www.kerrymountainrescue.ie
The Cache!!
In the Beginning!! There was Rocks
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian, 419.2 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, 358.9 Mya.[9] It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied.
The first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents. By the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. Various terrestrial arthropods also became well-established.
Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the "Age of Fish". The first ray-finned and lobe-finned bony fish appeared, while the placoderms began dominating almost every known aquatic environment. The ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) began adapting to walking on land, as their strong pectoral and pelvic fins gradually evolved into legs.[10] In the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian and Late Ordovician.
The first ammonites, species of molluscs, appeared. Trilobites, the mollusk-like brachiopods and the great coral reefs, were still common. The Late Devonian extinction which started about 375 million years ago[11] severely affected marine life, killing off all placodermi, and all trilobites, save for a few species of the order Proetida.
The palaeogeography was dominated by the supercontinent of Gondwana to the south, the continent of Siberia to the north, and the early formation of the small continent of Euramerica in between.
The period is named after Devon, a county in southwestern England, where a controversial argument in the 1830s over the age and structure of the rocks found distributed throughout the county was eventually resolved by the definition of the Devonian period in the geological timescale. The Great Devonian Controversy was a long period of vigorous argument and counter-argument between the main protagonists of Roderick Murchison with Adam Sedgwick against Henry De la Beche supported by George Bellas Greenough. Murchison and Sedgwick won the debate and named the period they proposed as the Devonian System.[12][13][14]
While the rock beds that define the start and end of the Devonian period are well identified, the exact dates are uncertain. According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy (Ogg, 2004), the Devonian extends from the end of the Silurian 419.2 Mya, to the beginning of the Carboniferous 358.9 Mya (in North America, the beginning of the Mississippian subperiod of the Carboniferous).[9]
In nineteenth-century texts the Devonian has been called the "Old Red Age", after the red and brown terrestrial deposits known in the United Kingdom as the Old Red Sandstone in which early fossil discoveries were found. Another common term is "Age of the Fishes",[15] referring to the evolution of several major groups of fish that took place during the period. Older literature on the Anglo-Welsh basin divides it into the Downtonian, Dittonian, Breconian and Farlovian stages, the latter three of which are placed in the Devonian.[16]
The Devonian has also erroneously been characterized as a "greenhouse age", due to sampling bias: most of the early Devonian-age discoveries came from the strata of western Europe and eastern North America, which at the time straddled the Equator as part of the supercontinent of Euramerica where fossil signatures of widespread reefs indicate tropical climates that were warm and moderately humid but in fact the climate in the Devonian differed greatly during its epochs and between geographic regions. For example, during the Early Devonian, arid conditions were prevalent through much of the world including Siberia, Australia, North America, and China, but Africa and South America had a warm temperate climate. In the Late Devonian, by contrast, arid conditions were less prevalent across the world and temperate climates were more common.
The Old Red Sandstone is an assemblage of rocks in the North Atlantic region largely of Devonian age. It extends in the east across Great Britain, Ireland and Norway, and in the west along the northeastern seaboard of North America. It also extends northwards into Greenland and Svalbard.[3] In Britain it is a lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) to which stratigraphers accord supergroup status[4] and which is of considerable importance to early paleontology. For convenience the short version of the term, ORS is often used in literature on the subject. The term was coined to distinguish the sequence from the younger New Red Sandstone which also occurs widely throughout Britain.
Sedimentology
The Old Red Sandstone describes a suite of sedimentary rocks deposited in a variety of environments during the Devonian but extending back into the late Silurian and on into the earliest part of the Carboniferous. The body of rock, or facies, is dominated by alluvial sediments and conglomerates at its base, and progresses to a combination of dunes, lakes and river sediments.
The familiar red colour of these rocks arises from the presence of iron oxide but not all the Old Red Sandstone is red or sandstone — the sequence also includes conglomerates, mudstones, siltstones and thin limestones and colours can range from grey and green through red to purple. These deposits are closely associated with the erosion of the Caledonian Mountain chain which was thrown up by the collision of the former continents of Avalonia, Baltica and Laurentia to form the Old Red Sandstone Continent- an event known as the Caledonian Orogeny.
Many fossils are found within the rocks, including early fishes, arthropods and plants. The rocks may appear paleontologically barren to amateur geologists but careful study, particularly with an accomplished fossil hunter, can uncover pockets of fossils. Rocks of this age were also laid down in southwest England (hence the name 'Devonian'; from Devon) though these are of true marine origin and are not included within the Old Red Sandstone.
Stratigraphy
Since the Old Red Sandstone consists predominantly of rocks of terrestrial origin, it does not generally contain marine fossils which would otherwise prove useful in correlating one occurrence of the rock with another, both between and within individual sedimentary basins. Accordingly, local stage names were devised and these remain in use to some extent today though there is an increasing use of international stage names. Thus in the Anglo-Welsh Basin, there are frequent references to the Downtonian, Dittonian, Breconian and Farlovian stages in the literature. The existence of a number of distinct sedimentary basins throughout Britain has been established.
Then...There was Folding
Amorican Highlands
Plate tectonics help us to explain the process of folding. According to the theory of plate tectonics, the earth’s crust is broken up into sections called plates. These plates float on the semi-molten mantle. Thermal convection currents in the mantle drag these plates in different directions resulting in tectonic activity.
Folding occurs when rock layers that were originally horizontal are bent into a series of wave-like folds. As a result of this collision of the earth’s tectonic plates, the rocks are folded and uplifted and fold mountains are created. This process is known as orogeny. There have been three major periods of fold mountain building, theCaledonian, Armorican and Alpine periods.
The Caledonian period of folding took place about 400 million years ago when the Eurasian plate and the American plate collided. The in-between ocean floor was subducted under both continents and the seafloor sediments were buckled up to form the sedimentary rocks of the Caledonian Fold Mountains.
The Appalachian mountains in North America, the mountains of Norway, Sweden and Scotland, and in Ireland the Dublin-Wicklow mountains and the mountains of the West and North-west were formed as a result of this collision.
The Armorican period of folding occurred about 250 million years ago when plate tectonics resulted in a collision between the Eurasian and African plates. Examples of Armorican fold mountains include the Vosges mountains in France and the Black Forest mountains in Germany. These mountains have an East-West trend as the compression came from the South. The ridge and valley landscape of Munster is a result of Armorican folding. During the Armorican foldings sedimentary rocks in Munster were folded to form ridges of sandstone and valleys of limestone. The limestone was easily eroded from the fold anticlines and they are seen today as sandstone mountain ridges such as the Mac Gillycuddy Reeks.
Plate movement is also responsible for the formation of the Himalayan mountains in Asia, the Alps in Europe, the Andes in South America and the Rocky mountains in North America. These fold mountains were formed as the African plate collided with the Eurasian plate. These are the youngest fold mountains, formed 60 million years ago. They are known as Alpine fold mountains. The Himalayan mountains are still increasing in size and volcanic and earthquake activity in the region shows that these tectonic plates are still colliding.
And If that wasn’t enough…Then came the Ice
Pyramidal Peak
A pyramidal peak, sometimes in its most extreme form called a glacial horn, is an angular, sharply pointed mountain peak which results from thecirque erosion due to multiple glaciers diverging from a central point. It may be an example of a nunatak .
Formation
Glaciers , typically forming in drainages on the sides of a mountain, develop bowl-shaped basins called cirques (sometimes called corries or cwms). Cirque glaciers have rotational sliding that abrades the floor of the basin more than walls and that causes the bowl shape to form. As cirques are formed by glaciation in an alpine environment, the headwall and ridges between parallel glaciers called arêtes become more steep and defined. This occurs due to freeze/thaw and mass wasting beneath the ice surface. It is widely held that a common cause for headwall steepening and extension headward is the crevasses known as bergschrund that occur between the moving ice and the headwall. Plucking and shattering can be seen here by those exploring the crevasses. A cirque is exposed when the glacier that created it recedes.
When three or more of these cirques converge on a central point, they create a pyramid-shaped peak with steep walls. These horns are a common shape for mountain tops in highly glaciated areas. The number of faces of a horn depends on the number of cirques involved in the formation of the peak: three to four is most common. Horns with more than four faces include the Weissmies and the Mönch. [1] A peak with four symmetrical faces is called a Matterhorn (after the Matterhorn )
Corrie Lakes, lochs or Tarns
Tarns
A tarn (or corrie loch) is a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier.
It is formed when either rain or river water fills the cirque. A moraine may form a natural dam below a tarn.
Cirque
A cirque (French, from the Latin word circus) is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion.
Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from Scottish Gaelic coire meaning a pot or cauldron) and cwm (Welsh for "valley", pronounced /k?m/ coom).
A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform arising from fluvial erosion.
The concave shape of a glacial cirque is open on the downhill side, while the cupped section is generally steep.
Cliff-like slopes down which ice and glaciated debris combine and converge from the three or more higher sides.
The floor of the cirque ends up bowl-shaped as it is the complex convergence zone of combining ice flows from multiple directions and their accompanying rock burdens,
hence it experiences somewhat greater erosion forces, and is most often overdeepened below the level of the cirque's low-side outlet (stage) and its down slope (backstage) valley.
If the cirque is subject to seasonal melting, the floor of the cirque most often forms a tarn (small lake) behind the moraine,
glacial till or bedrock lip marking the downstream limit of glacial overdeepening of the basin, which serves as a dam at the outlet.
The fluvial cirque or makhtesh, found in karst landscapes, is formed by intermittent river flow cutting through layers of limestone and chalk leaving sheer cliffs.
A common feature for all fluvial-erosion cirques is a terrain which includes erosion resistant upper structures overlying materials which are more easily eroded.
Glacial-erosion cirque formation
Glacial cirques are found amongst mountain ranges throughout the world; 'classic' cirques are typically about one kilometer long and one kilometer wide. Situated high on a mountainside near the firn line, they are typically partially surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs. The highest cliff often is called a headwall. The fourth side forms the lip, threshold or sill, the side at which the glacier flowed away from the cirque. Many glacial cirques contain tarns dammed by either till (debris) or a bedrock threshold. When enough snow accumulates it can flow out the opening of the bowl and form valley glaciers which may be several kilometers long.
Cirques form in conditions which are favorable; in the northern hemisphere the conditions include the north-east slope where they are protected from the majority of the sun’s energy and from the prevailing winds.
These areas are sheltered from heat, encouraging the accumulation of snow; if the accumulation of snow increases, the snow turns into glacial ice. The process of nivation follows,
whereby a hollow in a slope may be enlarged by ice segregation weathering and glacial erosion. Ice segregation erodes the rock vertical rock face and causes it to disintegrate,
which may result in an avalanche bringing down more snow and rock to add to the growing glacier.[3] Eventually, this hollow may become large enough that glacial erosion intensifies.
The enlarging of this open ended concavity creates a larger leeward deposition zone, furthering the process of glaciation. Debris (or till) in the ice also may abrade (glacial abrasion) the bed surface;
should ice move down a slope it would have a ‘sandpaper effect’ on the bedrock beneath, on which it scrapes.
Eventually, the hollow may become a large bowl shape in the side of the mountain, with the headwall being weathered by ice segregation, and as well as being eroded by plucking.
The basin will become deeper as it continues to be eroded by ice segregation and abrasion.[3][4] Should ice segregation, plucking and abrasion continue, the dimensions of the cirque will increase,
but the proportion of the landform would remain roughly the same. A bergschrund forms when the movement of the glacier separates the moving ice from the stationary ice forming a crevasse.
The method of erosion of the headwall lying between the surface of the glacier and the cirque’s floor has been attributed to freeze-thaw mechanisms. The temperature within the bergschrund changes very little,
however, studies have shown that ice segregation (frost shattering) may happen with only small changes in temperature.
Water that flows into the bergschrund can be cooled to freezing temperatures by the surrounding ice allowing freeze-thaw mechanisms to occur.
If two adjacent cirques erode toward one another, an arête, or steep sided ridge, forms.
When three or more cirques erode toward one another, a pyramidal peak is created. In some cases, this peak will be made accessible by one or more arêtes.
The Matterhorn in the European Alps is an example of such a peak.
Where cirques form one behind the other, a cirque stairway results as at the Zastler Loch in the Black Forest.
As glaciers can only originate above the snowline, studying the location of present-day cirques provides information on past glaciation patterns and on climate change.
In essence the mountains, part of the Armorican Highlands, are made from Devonian sandstone, carved by glaciers in the last Ice Age.
During the last ice age The Reeks were tall enough to act as nunataks, or a summit above the glaciers. Evidence of this last ice age can be found on the steep cliffs carved out of Corrán Tuathail’s North East Face as well as multiple glacial lakes. Found on all sides.
To Complete this cache you must answer 8 of the 10 following questions.
Please send me a message through the Geocaching App
All 4 at GZ, and 2 answers from the text above and 2 at Stage 2 OR Stage 3
There is no need to go to Stage 2 AND Stage 3 Either one will do.
Q1 At GZ What is the Altitude of your GPSr?
Q2 At GZ In your opinion (And depending on the view) What evidence of Erosion can you see from the summit. (If the View is lacking Count the number of nuts on the cross instead.)
Q3 At GZ What directions do you think the glaciers moved?
Q4 At GZ Corrán Tuathail is a pyramidal peak what evidence do you see to support this?
Q5 From Text: When was the Devonian Sandstone in Millions of Years Ago?
Q6 From Text: What is the order of Mountain Folding from oldest to youngest?
And!!
Q7 At Stage 2: Look North at the two lakes what evidence of Glaciation is clear at the lake edges?
Q8 At Stage 2: How many sheep can you see?
Or
Q9 At Stage 3: How many stepping stones are in the river and are they natural or man made?
Q10 At Stage 3: How many sheep can you see?
Please feel free to upload any photos!
Sources :
http://www.e-xamit.ie/tutorial.php?id=42503
https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCJ39P_corran-tuathail-irelands-highest-cache
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macgillycuddy%27s_Reeks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrauntoohil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidal_peak
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