Description: <DIV STYLE="text-align:Left;"><DIV><DIV><P STYLE="margin:0 0 14 0;"><SPAN><SPAN>Geological heritage or </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN><SPAN>‘</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN><SPAN>geoheritage</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN><SPAN>’</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN> 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.</SPAN></P><P STYLE="margin:0 0 14 0;"><SPAN>Ireland's</SPAN><SPAN> Geoheritage sites </SPAN><SPAN>were </SPAN><SPAN>divided into 16 themes (groups). The best sites </SPAN><SPAN>were</SPAN><SPAN> chosen from each group by theme experts. </SPAN><SPAN>Sites were selected by means of desktop studies and did not normally include site visits. These unaudited sites form the basis for selecting ‘county geological sites’ (CGS). Each CGS is checked to make sure it is the best example. CGS's can be viewed in the Geoheritage Audited Sites.</SPAN></P><P STYLE="margin:0 0 14 0;"><SPAN>It is a vector dataset. Vector data portray the world using points, lines, and polygons (areas). The Geoheritage unaudited sites are shown as circular polygons. . </SPAN><SPAN>Each </SPAN><SPAN>polygon</SPAN><SPAN> holds information on the following fields: site name, County, townland, Irish geoheritage theme, geological description, heritage status, references, features and coordinates in Irish </SPAN><SPAN>National G</SPAN><SPAN>rid and Irish Trans</SPAN><SPAN>verse</SPAN><SPAN> Mercator. </SPAN></P></DIV></DIV></DIV>