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gsi-county-geological-heritage-sites-audited

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Geological heritage or ‘geoheritage’is the term used to describe sites or places with features of geology that have important scientific, educational, cultural, or visual value. There are many types of sites. They are made from past and present geological processes (wearing away and building up of rocks and soils). They are a window into the past and present changes to the earth.

The Geoheritage sites are called ‘county geological sites’(CGS). The geology is divided into 16 themes (groups). The best sites are chosen from each group by theme experts. After this, each site is checked to make sure it is the best example. Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) does this together with the Heritage Council and Local Authorities.

The data is collected on a county by county basis with detailed site audits. Before each site is visited all known geological data for the county is checked. Next, each site is visited to record: the key geological features; whether the site can be accessed by the public; if the site is suitable to be promoted for tourism or education; and general condition. The site’s key features are recorded, mapped and photographed.

The data shown on the map was collected on paper during each site visit. Afterwards the data was digitised. The site locations were recorded on site using a GPS system.

It is a vector dataset. Vector data portray the world using points, lines, and polygons (areas). The Geoheritage audited sites are shown as polygons. Each polygon holds information on the following fields: site code, site name, Irish geoheritage theme, site description, geological description, heritage status, report url and coordinates in Irish National Grid and Irish Transverse Mercator.

Data Resources (6)

WMS
WMS
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SHP
ESRI Shapefile
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DATA VIEWER
available as data viewer
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ESRI REST
ESRI REST
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PDF
PDF County Geological Heritage Audit Reports
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HTML
GSI Website
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Data Resource Preview - WMS

Theme Science
Date released 2014-10-15
Date updated 2020-04-30
Dataset conforms to these standards The INSPIRE Directive or INSPIRE lays down a general framework for a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the purposes of European Community environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment.
Rights notes {"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence","Data that is produced directly by the Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) is free for use under the conditions of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcodeUnder the CC-BY Licence, users must acknowledge the source of the Information in their product or application. Please use this specific attribution statement: \"Contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence\".",license,"Data that is produced directly by the Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) is free for use under the conditions of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcodeUnder the CC-BY Licence, users must acknowledge the source of the Information in their product or application. Please use this specific attribution statement: \"Contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence\".",license}
Update frequency Other
Language English
Geographic coverage in GeoJSON format {"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-11.0, 50.0],[-11.0, 56.0], [-5.0, 56.0], [-5.0, 50.0], [-11.0, 50.0]]]}
Spatial Reference Systems (SRS) Irish Transverse Mercator (ITM, EPSG:2157)
Vertical Extent {"maxVerticalExtent": "1041", "verticalDomainName": "sea level", "minVerticalExtent": "0"}
Provenance information The Irish Geological Heritage (IGH) Programme in GSI complements other nature conservation efforts of the last two decades, by assessing Ireland’s geodiversity. Geodiversity is the foundation of the biodiversity addressed under European Directives on habitats and species by the designations of Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) and on a national scale by the introduction of natural heritage areas (NHAs) as the national nature conservation method. The IGH programme is a targeted conservation measure to protect the very best of Irish geology and geomorphology. In the initial stages of the programme a panel of experts was established. This comprised competent individuals drawn from the academic, scientific and research communities, geologists from Geological Survey Ireland as well as competent geologists from private industry. The experts derived a list of 16 geological themes under which Irish geological heritage could be grouped. Each theme was designated a panel leader. From this panel a master list of ’indicative’ sites was established which included the best examples of known geological sites under each theme. These site locations were identified with a grid reference and were digitized using ArcGIS mapping software and each site was given a buffer zone of 500m or 1,000m depending on the certainty of the known site location. Sites were not inspected individually at this stage. Note, The indicative list is described below as the Unaudited Sites featureclass. The second stage of the project was the county by county auditing of sites on the ‘indicative list’. Each site is visited by a geologist and the information on the indicative list is verified and updated as necessary. Site information is collected and recorded on paper maps and in site notebooks. A photographic record is made of each site and the landowner details are recorded, along with the condition of the site, and information on access to the site. County audit data is then reviewed and sites are designated as County Geological Sites (CGS) or recommended Natural Heritage Area (NHA) sites. Note, County audit data is described below as the Audited Sites featureclass. DATA MANAGEMANT Data is managed as a featureclass stored in an ArcGIS Enterprise Geodatabase. UNAUDITED SITES DATA The unaudited sites featureclass is referred to above as the indicative list. In 2020 the unaudited sites data was cleaned in SAFE FME. One aspect of the data to note is that the sites are stored as circular polygons rather than a point with a buffer. Further the attributes often give Easting and Northing values for several sub sites. While unusual this is not ‘wrong’ as the circles are encompassing an area yet to be designated or delineated. Sites for counties that have had audited sites data published are preserved in the featureclass for future reference. AUDITED SITES DATA The unaudited sites data is reviewed on a county by county basis by subject matter experts From this review an audited sites shapefile is created and delivered to GSI. In 2020 the audited sites data was cleaned in SAFE FME. Incoming audited sites shapefiles are prepared in SAFE FME to conform to the Audited Sites featureclass schema. This schema includes; • Geometry; o Feature Type : Polygon o Coordinate System : Irish Transverse Mercator • Attributes; o SITECODE : which is generated based on an alphabetical sort of the sites by name with the county code prefix eg KK008 o SITENAME : name of site o IGH1 : An Irish Geoheritage Theme o IGH2 : An Irish Geoheritage Theme o IGH3: An Irish Geoheritage Theme o IGH4: An Irish Geoheritage Theme o COUNTY : County name o DESCRIPT : A description of the site o GEOLOGICAL : A description of the geological feature(s) of interest o DESIGNAT : The status of the site o REPORT : Links to reports associated with the audited sites which are hosted on GSI servers o X_IG Y_IG : Irish National Grid coordinates which are not necessarily the centroids of the polygons o X_ITM Y_ITM : Irish Transverse Mercator coordinates which are derived from the Irish National Grid coordinates Once signed off this data is added to the Audited Sites Featureclass in SDE. PUBLICATION The Unaudited and Audited Sites Feautureclasses are brought into ArcGIS Pro where symbology is applied. The data published as a REST service. This REST Service is used to populate the Geoheritage Viewer published in ArcGIS Online (AGOL). Note; when audited sites for a county are published that counties unaudited sites are
Period of time covered (begin) 2012-01-16