A borehole is any hole drilled or dug into the ground. The material (soil and or rock) from the hole is collected and tested in a laboratory to find out the structure and type of the soil and or rock beneath the ground. A borehole record or log is a written description of the material that comes out of the ground as a result of drilling a borehole.

Geotechnical boreholes are usually shallow (0-30m). They are drilled by engineering companies before building new structures. Before building starts site investigations are carried out to find out the quality of the ground (strength and depth of soil and to see if rock and or groundwater is present).

This map shows the location of the Geotechnical boreholes drilled in Ireland that have been submitted to the GSI from engineering companies.

It is a vector dataset. Vector data portray the world using points, lines, and polygons (areas). The borehole data is shown as points. Each point holds information on: the location of the borehole (X and Y coordinates), the depth of the borehole (metres) and whether or not bedrock was found at the bottom of the hole.