Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland, Ireland
Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland
Legend has it the causeway was formed when the Irish giant Finn McCool built it to tempt his Scottish rival Benandonner to come and do battle. However, geologists believe the causeway was formed by hot lava erupting from deep underground, forcing itself up through cracks in the existing chalk bed and forming an underground lava plateau. As it cooled and contracted, the basalt columns were left behind. Over thousands of years erosion wore away the exposed rocks to reveal the columns. That aside, Finn McCool is also credited with carving out Lough Neagh when he ripped away a sod of earth and hurled it into the Irish Sea. The sod clung to the sea bed and became the Isle of Man. A likely story.
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