Blurs

The Burren is one of Ireland's strangest landscapes. Its vast fields of exposed limestone, broken into terraces, cracks and deep fissures, can look almost alien. Yet beneath this apparently barren stone landscape lies evidence of a very different world — one that existed hundreds of millions of years before humans, dinosaurs or even the first true reptiles appeared. Recently discovered fossils from the Burren and Donegal have revealed the remains of ancient sharks that lived approximately 330 million years ago. They weren't the sleek predators familiar from modern oceans. Some possessed strange, crushing teeth adapted to feeding on hard-shelled prey. Their fossilised remains provide a glimpse into an ancient marine ecosystem that existed long before the Atlantic Ocean took its modern form. Ireland Before Ireland Around 330 million years ago, Ireland looked nothing like it does today. The land that would eventually become Ireland was positioned much closer to the equator. Much o...