Daily Nature Fix: 40,000 Basalt Columns. (Original Photos)

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We're creeping up on 1:30am here on the east coast, but I wanted to slap together a DNF post before calling it a night. Last year while in Northern Ireland, we stopped at the popular Giant's Causeway right near the top of the country... and I haven't seen anything else quite like it.

The "causeway" is made up of over 40,000 interlocking basalt columns that cover the shoreline. I've seen such columns at almost every place that I've seen a volcano, but they're usually part of a cliff face or built into the side of a mountain. I've never been somewhere that you're seeing them all from the top, like this.

The whacky hexagonal shape of these columns bears an interesting story in itself. They are formed when lava sprawls across the landscape and begins to cool. Naturally, the surface of this lava cools first and causes some thermal stress that begins to cause cracks, like glass. The molecular structure of the lava causes it to crack in geometric shapes. As the rest of the lava cools, those cracks travel deeper and deeper all the way through the layer of lava, forming these columns. Some areas are around 100ft thick! Over the centuries, the ocean as eroded the stone and made the different levels of columns, creating the stairs look.

^^^I couldn't resist taking a classic feet-in-the-frame ocean-y photo.

Thanks for reading! I post a nature-themed Daily Nature Fix blog every day. Please upvote if you enjoyed it and resteem if you found it especially interesting! Be sure to follow me @customnature so you'll never miss out on your nature fix! See you tomorrow. - Adam

*** These daily blogs showcase the natural world. It is all original content using photos, stories, and experiences from my own travels. ***