The Giant's Causeway


It's one of the natural phenomena most curious that exist. A place along the Irish coast, immersed in a spectacular landscape, where thousands of basalt columns with hexagonal shape. They are the result of the rapid cooling of lava from a volcano, something that happened millions of years ago. It is incredible to think that even today the consequences can still be observed: a surprising and mysterious landscape.

To know the Giant's Causeway, which in English is known as The Giant’s CausewayYou will have to travel to the coast of County Antrim, in Northern Ireland. Such is its beauty and magnetism that UNESCO declared the place World Heritage in 1986.

A natural explanation


Although the Giant's Causeway is a surprising and enigmatic place, the geological process the one that triggered it is simple and easily explained: incandescent lava cools quickly and as a result is the appearance of hexagonal prisms of basalt, a crystalline rock.


With the passage of time and due to the action of atmospheric agents, and since basalt is a very resistant mineral, the erosion acts on the surrounding rocks, exposing these amazing basaltic columns.

Legend says…

Discovered in 1693, there is a history which explains the formation of this stone road. Legend has it that there were two giants, one in Ireland and the other in Scotland, who fatally took and threw stones at each other. So many were thrown that they ended up building a rock path over the sea.

The Scottish giant decided to go to the other side to end the Irish giant, but the latter's wife, seeing him arrive, dressed her husband as a baby. When the Scottish giant arrived in Ireland and saw that big baby, he imagined what the size of his father would be and fled in terror. Such was the force with which he stepped on the rocks that the road was submerged in the sea.

Giant's Causeway | National Geographic (March 2024)


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