On the edge of the antrim Plain in Northern Ireland, at the foot of the basalt cliff along the coast, Cape Jantzcosway, composed of more than 40,000 giant columns, protrudes out of the sea. These more than 40,000 basalt stone pillars of uniform size converge into a causeway stretching for thousands of meters, which is known as the natural miracle of the world. For 300 years, geologists have studied its structure and learned that it was formed by the continuous eruption of tertiary active volcanoes. The molten basalt flows out of the ground and contracts after cooling, forming hexagonal, quadrilateral or pentagonal prisms.
The legend of the giant's road
The Giant's Road is also called the Giant's Dike or the Giant's Point. This name comes from Irish folklore. One theory was put forward by Irish giant Finn McMahole. He moved the pillars one by one to the bottom of the sea so that he could go to Scotland to fight his opponent Finn Gail. When McMahole finished, he decided to have a rest. At the same time, his opponent, Finn Gail, traveled across Ireland to evaluate his opponent, but was frightened by the huge body of the sleeping giant. Especially after McMahole's wife told him that it was actually a giant's child, Gail was worried about his life when he thought about what kind of monster the father should be. He hurried back to Scotland and destroyed the causeway behind him. Now all the causeway remains are located on the coast of antrim.
Another way of saying it is that the commander of the Irish king's army, the giant Finn McMahole, is very powerful. Once in a fight with a Scottish giant, he picked up a stone and threw it at his fleeing opponent. The stone fell into the sea and became today's giant island. Later, he fell in love with the giant girl who lived in hebrides. In order to bring her here, he built such a causeway. Solve the mystery of the giant road
Seen from the air, the ochre stone pillar causeway of Giant's Road is particularly eye-catching and intriguing against the blue sea. But what kind of natural forces created this world-famous spectacle?
The research of modern geologists has solved the mystery of "Giant's Road". At the end of Cretaceous, the North Atlantic began to split, the North American continent separated from Eurasia, the crust moved violently, and volcanic eruptions occurred frequently. About 50 million years ago, volcanoes were very active from the Hebrides to eastern Northern Ireland, which is now western Scotland. Lava gushed from the fractured crust. As the hot lava gradually cools, contracts and crystallizes, it begins to break into regular patterns, usually hexagons.
The coast of Giant's Road includes low tide area, cliffs, roads leading to the top of cliffs and a piece of flat land. The average height of the cliff is 100 meter. Volcanic lava overflowed five or six times in different periods, forming a multi-level structure of the cliff. Giant's Road is the most basalt-like place on this coastline. A large number of basalt columns are arranged together to form a spectacular basalt column forest, which is magnificent. The stone pillars are constantly eroded by the waves and cut off at different heights, resulting in the stepped appearance of the giant road.
The stone pillars that make up the giant's road are generally about 0.45 meters wide and about 6000 meters long. Some stone pillars are more than 6 meters above sea level, and the highest can reach about 12 meters; Some stone pillars are submerged or as high as the sea surface. Similar columnar basaltic landforms are also distributed in other parts of the world, such as Staffa Island in hebrides and southern Iceland, but they are not as complete and spectacular as Giant's Road. Giant's Road is a perfect expression of this unique phenomenon. These stone pillars form a stone road with steps, which is as wide as a dense stone forest. The Giant's Road and the Giant's Road Coast are not only steep natural landscapes, but also provide valuable information for the study of earth science. A masterpiece of fire and ice
Tens of millions of years ago, the embryonic Atlantic began to split and expand. The mid-Atlantic ridge is the center of division and expansion, that is, the boundary of separating plates. The upper mantle magma upwelling in the mid-ridge rift covers a large area and the lava layers overlap. Today, the lava plateaus in Ireland and Scotland were formed by large-scale lava flows at that time. When lava cools to form basalt, the solidification process of magma will shrink, and the contraction force is so uniform that a regular hexagonal prism will be formed when it cracks. This process is a bit like a thick layer of mud at the bottom of a quagmire cracked by the sun. In the thousands of years since its formation, the basalt column at Jaentzkowski Point has been gradually shaped into this peculiar landform through the erosion of glaciers and the erosion of Atlantic waves during the Great Ice Age. Each basalt stone pillar is actually made up of several hexagonal stones stacked together. The waves gradually erode the exposed part along the fault line between stones, taking the loose part away. Finally, the step effect of basalt dike is formed. Strange basalt
In the early days of the formation of the North Atlantic, the newly formed sea lanes between the now separated North American continent and the European continent were still under development. The dominant position of the North Atlantic has been determined, but its boundary is in the stage of formation and change. About 80 million years ago, the west coast of Greenland was separated from Canada, but the southeast coast is still closely connected with the northwest coast of the British Isles. After about 20 million years, these coasts began to separate, and there were great volcanoes on the islands of Skye, Ram, Mar and Allen, as well as the Scottish island of Adna Mohn and the southern Irish islands of Silver Galion, Clifton and Mohn. These ancient volcanoes must have been spectacular in the early days, but the most important records about the situation at that time were floods, plateaus and basalts. The ejected basalt is a particularly hot fluid lava. According to records, its downhill speed exceeds 48 kilometers per hour. Fluid lava is easy to spread in a large area, so it is called "overflow basalt". Moreover, they formed large lava all over the volcanic active area. There are similar basalts in Deccan Plateau of India, which formed 700,000 cubic kilometers of lava 40-60 million years ago. Any hot liquid will shrink when it is cold, and lava is no exception. But when lava finally cools and crystallizes, it begins to burst into regular patterns, usually hexagonal patterns. The main feature of lava is that cracks extend straight up and down, and water can flow down from top to bottom. As a result, a unique network of basalt columns was formed, and all the basalt columns were incredibly connected, with only tiny cracks between them.
Besides the Giant's Road, another famous example is Staffa Island in hebrides on the west coast of Scotland. Basalt columns are well developed in most areas, and there will be a huge cave. Along the road of the mysterious giant, the sea there eroded the stone pillars into fingal caves. Fingal Cave is very famous, and it has been described in poems and novels for centuries. Inspired by the composer Felix Mendelssohn's visit to the island in 1829, he composed a famous orchestral prelude, which is now called "Inner hebrides".