Input your search keywords and press Enter.

Gourmet
  • Home
  • Humanity
  • Food
  • Anecdote
  • Guideline
  • List
Gourmet

Giant's Causeway: instant contact between hot lava and cold water produces a spectacle

  • May 22, 2025

S

The Giant's Causeway on the Atlantic coast, about 80 kilometers northwest of Belfast, is Northern Ireland's most prestigious tourist attraction and a World Natural Heritage Site.

The Giant's Causeway is an 8-kilometer stretch of coast made up of a total of about 40,000 hexagonal stone pillars. The typical stone pillars of the Giant's Causeway are about 0.45m wide, some of them are more than 6m above the sea surface, the highest being about 12m, and there are also a large number of pillars that are submerged or level with the sea surface.

The coast includes the low tide area, the cliff and the road leading to the top of the cliff and a piece of flat land, the pillars are continuous and orderly, extending into the sea in a stepped form, forming one of the wonders of nature.

It is likely that the cause was the sudden cooling of the hot magma from the volcanic eruption in the sea water, and the crystallization process over tens of millions of years. At the end of the Cretaceous period, the North Atlantic Ocean began to separate from the Eurasian continent, the crustal movement was intense, and volcanic eruptions were frequent.

About 50 million years ago, volcanoes were very active along the line of the Inner Hebrides in western Scotland to eastern Northern Ireland today, and a stream of basaltic lava poured out of the fissured crust, which began to burst into regular hexagonal form as the searing lava cooled and contracted and crystallized.

Because the Giant's Causeway landscape is so peculiar, there are also several folklore stories widely circulated, which are nothing more than the work of a giant of immense strength and omnipotence.

One theory claims that the Giant's Causeway was built by the Irish giant Finn McCool. He moved the rock pillars one by one to the bottom of the sea so that he could walk to Scotland to fight his rival Finn Gale. When McCool finished, he decided to rest for a while, meanwhile, his rival Fin Gale came across Ireland to size up his opponent.

Fin Gale was terrified when he saw McCool's huge body. Especially after McCool's wife told him that it was actually the giant's child, Gale became frightened and hurriedly withdrew to Scotland and destroyed the causeway, the remnant of which is the Giant's Causeway today.

Another theory is that Finn McCool, the commander of the Irish King's Army, was so powerful that once in a fight with a Scottish giant, he casually picked up a stone and threw it at his fleeing opponent, which fell into the sea and formed today's Giant's Island.

Later he fell in love with a giant girl who lived in the Inner Hebrides, and built this causeway to bring her here.

Keys
  • Ireland
  • Volcano
  • Coast
  • Road of Giants
  • Giants
You May Also Like
Wonderful! Thousands of lakes in the Brazilian desert

Wonderful! Thousands of lakes in the Brazilian desert

  • Aug 09, 2023
The world's largest underwater space station will be settled in Curacao, costing 135 million US dollars

The world's largest underwater space station will be settled in Curacao, costing 135 million US dollars

  • May 24, 2025
The "black beach" is so deep and transparent that visitors are like being on an alien planet

The "black beach" is so deep and transparent that visitors are like being on an alien planet

  • Jun 02, 2025
Lifelong wanderers of the desert people: do not recognize nationality, the desert as home

Lifelong wanderers of the desert people: do not recognize nationality, the desert as home

  • Jul 08, 2025
The world's only diamond city, a small city with a total of 72,000 tons of diamonds

The world's only diamond city, a small city with a total of 72,000 tons of diamonds

  • Jun 22, 2025
The world's highest rate of cheating countries, 1/3 of the people have extramarital affairs, but everyone is very happy

The world's highest rate of cheating countries, 1/3 of the people have extramarital affairs, but everyone is very happy

  • Mar 01, 2025
Categories
Humanity
62
View Posts
Food
62
View Posts
Anecdote
60
View Posts
Guideline
62
View Posts
List
61
View Posts

User Agreement | Privacy Policy
Copyright© 2023 financoz.com . All rights reserved.