Cork Red Marble

Notes:

A lime conglomerate that contains rounded white blotches representing the original calcite pebbles, surrounded and supported in a red clay-rich matrix. This rock type was deposited during the earliest part of the Carboniferous 350 Ma ago in a shallow water marine environment quite close to the shoreline. The dominant red colouration results from haematite, an iron-oxide which was derived from the erosion of the red sandstones that underlie the Carboniferous succession. Following lithification, the rock underwent some slight deformation due to compression caused during the Hercynian Orogeny towards the end of the Carboniferous. This produced stylolites due to dissolution with concentration of red clay in wavy bands that cross-cut some of the pebbles. Calcite veins also cut the stone fabric and the stylolites. This limestone is sparsely fossiliferous with crinoids visible as circular traverse sections as well as longitudinal sections of crinoids stems in both the matrix and the calcite pebbles in hand sample, and fragmentary brachiopods, bryozoans and foraminiferans in thin section.