| 1. Symposia / Historical Safaris
3. Research 4. Surveys
7. Folklore 9. Contact us 11. Links |
Soils As part of the New Survey of Clare Island, a full soil survey of the island is being carried out. For more information please contact us or Wies Vullings, National University of Ireland, Dublin, e-mail.wies.vullings@ucd.ie
Like the rest of Ireland, Clare Island has a complex vegetational and especially, arboreal history. Though the island is distinctly tree-less today (apart from one small woodland area), one can easily find evidence of a much different vegetational history in the past.
At the bottom of the valley that separates the two gates on the lighthouse road,one can find quite large tree stumps in the cutaway bog. The story of these pines and oaks is a complex one. It involves thousands of years of a tumultuous vegetational history as well ast housands of years of concurrent human habitation. These tree stumps were exhumed when population pressures were severe and man's basic need for fuel led to the denudation of this particular bog, itself having taken thousands of years to grow. Not long after the establishment of hazel, scots pine, (pinus sylvestris), the type of tree which is half-buried in the bog, appears on the scene.Hazel and pine woods, especially along the western coast, develop together and palaeobotanists refer to a hazel-pinephase from about 9000 to about 8500 years ago. Forbes, in his Clare Island Survey paper, elaborates at great length the movements and growth patterns of these two species, as well as oak, on the island. He estimates that half the island was eventually covered by these species. A more recent study posits that nearly the the entirety of the island must have been under forest cover. As part of the feasibility study for the New Survey of Clare Island, Dr. Pete Coxon, TCD, took a number of core samples from lakebeds on the island. Charcoal appears in the cores and has been dated as 7000 years old. At the moment, it is impossible to say whether the burning of wood which produced this charcoal was done by man or as a result of natural causes. Early man and charcoal have been linked scientifically at a number of other sites in Connemara. On the evidence of the pollen diagram there seems to be no reason why we cannot also assume that by this time man had arrived and begun to alter his environment by burning down trees. All the pine stumps in the Lough Avullin bog show some signs of burning. Again, it is difficult to say how the charcoal came about. We must await the results of the study to argue the case, if any, of the exact nature and date of this possible interference by man. For more information please contact us or Dr. Pete Coxon, Trinity College, Dublin: pete.coxon@tcd.ie.
|
tree
stumps
