The large earthquake in Nepal this last week has been terrible for the people there, but most of us don’t know that in Millstreet, we actually live on a major fault line that was once as active as the any in the world. Referred to as the Killarney-Mallow Fault (KMF), it stretches from the Iveragh Peninsula in Kerry to the other side of Mallow and is the point where two continents were colliding. It is a reverse and thrust fault, and it resulted in folding of the rocks that created all the mountains of south of here.
This all happened 270 million years ago, so thankfully we get no serious earthquakes these days. The mountains were once almost three times as large, but they have since been weathered and scoured by glaciers during the ice ages, down to their current shapes, while the valleys have been filled in with debris.
Below are detailed maps and explanations and links to further detail: [read more …] “On Shaky Ground”
