Lithostratigraphy and structure of the old red sandstone of the Northern Dingle Peninsula,Co. Kerry,Southwest Ireland

The lower part of the Old Red Sandstone in the Dingle Penisula has been previously assigned to one lithostratigraphic group (Dingle Group) despite marked variations in sedimentary facies. However the apparently oldest non-marine sequence in the northwest of the peninsula has sedimentary and lithological attributes that contrast strongly with those of the late Silurian-early Devonian Dingle Group to the south. This northern sequence, here renamed the Smerwick Group, evolved independently of the Dingle Group in a separate basin of deposition. Field relationships between the two groups in the north of the peninsula are interpreted as indicating that the Smerwick Group overlies, with angular unconformity, a normal Dingle Group succession. Similarly, it is argued that the Smerwick Group overlies, with angular unconformity, the Dingle Group in the northwest of the peninsula, but there the Dingle Group is attenuated, represented only by a conglomerate unit some 10 m thick. In the absence of biostratigraphic evidence the age of the Smerwick Group is poorly constrained. Nevertheless, we propose a tectonic model that suggests that the Smerwick Group evolved within a small extensional half-graben on the northern margin of the Munster Basin. This model accounts for the stratigraphic and structural relationships observed, and implies that the Smerwick Group is of Late Devonian age.