What is the Giants Causeway The Giants Causeway

What is the Giant’s Causeway? The Giant’s Causeway is located in County Atrim in Northern Ireland. The Giant’s Causeway is an area of basalt rock columns along 6 kilometers (4 miles) of the northern coast of Northern Ireland. There approximately 40, 000 of these stone pillars, each typically with five to seven irregular sides, jutting out of the cliff faces as if they were steps creeping into the sea.

What is the Giant’s Causeway? The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there also some with four, five, seven and eight sides. The tallest are about 12 metres (36 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres thick in places.

How was it formed? Scientists have some different ideas on the creation of the Giant’s Causeway. However, the most commonly reported idea is that the Giant’s Causeway is the result of a volcanic event.

Volcanic eruptions, around 60 million years ago, oozed lava out of the earth slowly.

It was when the lava began to cool that things got really interesting! At the bottom of the deep lava pool, cracks formed as the rocks below were much cooler than the lava on top. This however was not unusual and happens with most rock formations. As these cracks grew and spread, they formed strange hexagonal shapes. This is what other lava looks like once it’s cooled!

As it cooled further, the cracks started to creep upwards. They were still keeping the same strange hexagonal shapes, but were now transforming into tall pillars made of basalt rock. The size of the pillars was primarily determined by the speed at which the lava from the volcanic eruption cooled.