Understanding Irish karst

Karst is a landscape with distinctive hydrology and landforms that arise when the underlying rock is soluble. Although karst can develop on evaporate rocks such as gypsum and siliceous rocks such as quartzite, the vast majority of karst landforms are found on carbonate rocks, such as limestones.

Karst principally occurs in the Carboniferous Limestone in Ireland. Limestones of Carboniferous age (300 – 340 million years ago) underlie approximately 43% of the Republic of Ireland, and 38% of the Island of Ireland, and consequently karst is very widespread. Karst is very important to Ireland for a number of different reasons.