Mountain Building
As you return to the road section, it is a good time to observe tectonic forces at work. During the Devonian, the deposited sediments would have been laid down more or less horizontally. But looking out over the rocks you have just crossed; the landscape is markedly uneven with a distinctly folded surface and beds dipping at various angles. This is due to the continental collisions during the Variscan Orogeny where rocks buckled and crumpled under the huge forces over millions of years.
Two major things happened to the rocks as the continents collided. The first is that due to the compression and squeezing of the rocks there was on overall shortening of the area by about 40%. This compression of the rocks resulted in the crinkled texture that can be seen across the rocks. In geology this kind of texture formed from tectonic activity is known as cleavage. 
The second thing which happened was that the once flat lying rocks became distinctly folded and tilted into a series of anticlines and synclines. The folds at Valentia Island are quite gentle suggesting that the region wasn’t at the centre of tectonic activity. However, the rocks dip reasonably steeply in places, and due to erosion and weathering good cross sections through the sequence of beds can be seen, allowing you to see how the rock was deposited in different layers over time. 
