The land mass we now call Ireland was formed about 420 million years ago when two ancient continents, once separated by a vast ocean, came together.

Now joined, this land would travel North along the globe and into a range of climate zones over the next 50 million years.

This journey would mould, sculpt and transform the landscape as each latitude left its own indelible imprint on the landscape.

In Northern Ireland, in the very ground beneath our feet, the blueprint of this evolution of the land is encoded into the very rocks and writ large across vast tracts of our natural environment.

The driving force behind these global events is a relentless natural phenomenon which continues to change the physical composition of this planet.

It has torn apart and then reconfigured continents, seas and oceans while earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis are directly linked to its inexorable processes.

It is known as Plate Tectonics - and understanding this is essential to unlocking the story of Northern Ireland's geological Blueprint.

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