Geology Is Very Cool Stuff !

This is called the Dun Briste sea stack off the N.W. coast of Downpratrick, Ireleand. This is part of the mainland coast a few hundred meters away that broke away from the coastline in the 14th century. Dun Briste is Gaelic for "sea fort." It is is Mississipian aged and in the neighborhood of 350 MM years old.

The North Atlantic moved back and forth over geological time and left these various sediments of mudstone, shale, mudstone, limestone, which can be seen in the stack, and more shales after each progression/recession. This stack would not look a whole lot different than Mississipian aged Barnett in the Midland Basin at 13.000 feet TVD that everybody is excited about producing more natural gas from, as though thats what the Permian needs, more gas production.

There are remenants of an old limestone house on top of this stack. At low tide and calm seas it can be reached by boat and is climbed all the time suggesting the shale and mudstones are not not very crumbly, or brittle, and will hold protection climbing screws, bolts, etc.

Back around the N.E. coast of Scotland, in the North Sea, Carboniferous Mississipian age limestones, (chalk) produced hydrcoarbons, big time !