Geology & Landscape

Have you ever wondered why the Mourne Mountains and Slieve Croob rise over a beautiful landscape? The answer lies deep in the prehistory of the earth, beginning when the surface of the earth looked very different. If you stand in the Deer’s Meadow near Spelga Dam, you are standing on the sedimentary rock formed in the earth’s ancient oceans that once covered the Mourne peaks. It took the shifting of continents, volcanic activity and the effects of the various Ice Ages to shape what we now appreciate as the Mourne AONB. This transformation took thousands of years to complete.