of the float parade followed by the wellie race itself. Race Personalities over the years have included local former Olympic boxer Mick Dowling, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, Ronan Collins, Jimmy Magee, Michael Carruth, Tommy Walsh and racehorse trainer Jim Bolger. The annual event is used to raise funds for local, national and international charities. Geology and fossils Geology The Leinster Coalfield (the Castlecomer Plateau) is hosted by an outlier (younger rocks surrounded by stratigraphically underlying older rocks) of Upper Carboniferous sandstones, siltstones and shales that sit on the surrounding Lower Carboniferous limestones. These rock types formed over 300 Million years ago and form the bedrock of Castlecomer and surrounding areas. The area's geological history has facilitated coal-mining and brick production industries. "Footprints in Coal" is a permanent interactive multimedia exhibition in the town which tells the story of the Castlecomer Coal deposits from the formation of the coal in the enormous swamp forests of the Carboniferous Period to the mines which operated until 1969. The exhibition uses fossils, mining artefacts, models, audio-visual and life-sized reconstructions of Carboniferous plants and animals to illustrate the story. Fossils Coal-mining at Castlecomer has unearthed a number of fossils over the years of exploration. Many of the animal fossils found in the Castlecomer coal were amphibians. The National Museum of Ireland and Trinity College, Dublin have some very rare amphibians from the Jarrow Colliery, and replicas can be viewed at the Castlecomer Discovery Park Exhibition. William Booking Brownrigg was a scholar who had heard about the plant fossils in Castlecomer and came to examine them. He found something much more significant than expected—the remains of ancient amphibians. He started to write about them and persuaded the Geological Survey of Ireland to pay for their illustration. Edward Percival Wright was a professor of Geology at Trinity College Dublin. He heard about the amphibian finds in Clogh and came to study them himself. After studying the amphibians, he realised their importance and arranged for further excavation of the mine, which yielded more fossils. Wright then contacted Thomas Henry Huxley to come and examine the fossils and together they published a paper on them in 1867. Huxley described at least ten genres of amphibian fossils in Castlecomer, five of which were previously unknown. These were an exceptional assemblage of Upper Carboniferous fossil amphibians discovered in coal measures at Jarrow Colliery, Castlecomer. Texts from Wright and Huxley include: (1866) On