What are the tourist attractions in Northern Ireland, UK?

In the headland on the edge of the Antrim Plains in Northern Ireland, UK, at the foot of the cliffs along the coast, there are about 37,000 hexagonal, pentagonal, and quadrilateral stone pillars. Enzikoswe Cape protrudes from the sea, stretching from the cliff to the sea. It has stood on the seaside for thousands of years. Known as the "Giant's Causeway".

The Giant's Causeway coast includes a low-tide area, cliffs, roads leading to the top of the cliffs, and a plateau. The average height of the cliffs is 100 meters. The Giant's Causeway is the most distinctive place on this coastline. These more than 37,000 basalt pillars of uniform size are gathered into a causeway stretching several kilometers. The shape is very regular and looks like it was hewn manually. A large number of basalt pillars are arranged together to form a spectacular forest of basalt pillars. Their orderly, beautiful shapes and majestic momentum are breathtaking. The Giant's Causeway is a natural wonder of the world. It is a world natural heritage site and a famous tourist attraction in Northern Ireland.

The cross-sectional width of the stone pillars that make up the Giant's Causeway ranges from 3 to 51 centimeters, with a typical width of about 0.45 meters and a length of about 6,000 meters. The widest point of the headland is about 12 meters wide, and the narrowest point is only 3 or 4 meters. This is also the highest point of the stone pillar. Here, some stone pillars are more than 6 meters above the sea, and the tallest one can reach about 12 meters. There are also stone pillars that are submerged underwater or as high as the sea surface.

Standing on some relatively short stones, you can see that their cross-sections are very regular regular polygons. The shapes of different stone pillars have figurative names, such as "Chimney Cap", "Big Wine Bowl" and "Lady's Fan".

The legend of the Giant's Causeway: The Giant's Causeway is also known as the Giant's Causeway or Giant's Cape. This name originated from Irish folklore. One theory says that the Giant's Causeway was built by Irish giant Finn McCool. He carried the rock pillars one by one to the bottom of the sea so that he could go to Scotland to fight his rival Finn Gale. When McCool finished, he decided to take a break. At the same time, his opponent Finn Gale decided to travel across Ireland to size up his opponent, but was frightened by the huge body of McCool's giant. Especially after McCool's wife told him that this was in fact the child of a giant, Gale feared for his life as he considered what kind of giant the child's father must be. He hastily retreated to Scotland, destroying the causeway behind him to prevent Finn McCool from reaching Scotland. All remnants of the causeway now lie on the Antrim coast.

According to another theory, the Giant's Causeway was specially built by the giant Finn McCool, the commander of the Irish King's Army, to welcome his beloved girl. Legend has it that the giant Finn McCool, the commander of the Irish King's Army, was so powerful that during a fight with a Scottish giant, he picked up a stone and threw it at the fleeing opponent. The stone fell into the sea and became the Giant Island today. Later he fell in love with a giant girl who lived in the Inner Hebrides, and built such a causeway to bring her here.

The formation of the Giant's Causeway: Viewed from the air, the ocher-brown stone pillar causeway of the Giant's Causeway is particularly eye-catching and thought-provoking against the backdrop of the azure sea. But what kind of natural force created this world-famous spectacle?

Modern geologists have uncovered the mystery of the "Giant's Causeway" by studying its structure. The Giant's Causeway is actually entirely natural basalt. At the end of the Cretaceous, the embryonic North Atlantic began to continuously divide and expand. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge was the center of division and expansion, and also the separated plate boundary. Magma in the upper mantle rises up from rift valleys in the ridge, covering a large area with layers of lava stacked on top of each other.

At that time, the main position of the North Atlantic had been determined, but its boundaries were in the stage of formation and change. Although the North American continent and the Eurasian continent have been separated, the newly formed sea lanes between the now separated North American continent and Europe are still in development. About 80 million years ago, Greenland's west coast separated from Canada, but its southeast coast is still closely connected to the northwest coast of the British Isles on the opposite side. About 20 million years later, these coasts began to separate. This series of geological changes led to violent crustal movements on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and frequent volcanic eruptions. There are large islands in what are now the Isles of Skye, Lamu, Mull and Arran, as well as in Cape Ardenamohen on the mainland of Scotland and Slieve Galion, Clifden and Morne in Ireland in the south. of volcanoes. These ancient volcanoes must have been spectacular in their infancy, but the most important records left of their time are the floods, plateaus and basalts.

About 50 million years ago (i.e., the Tertiary Period), volcanoes were very active from what is now the Inner Hebrides in western Scotland to eastern Northern Ireland, and the lava plateaus on the two islands of Ireland and Scotland are now very active. It was formed by a large-scale lava flow at that time. The basalt that erupts is a particularly hot fluid lava. It has been recorded that its downhill flow speed exceeds 48 kilometers per hour. Fluid lava spreads more easily over a large area, hence the term "flood basalt." They form large chunks of lava that can be found throughout volcanic activity. There is a similar geological situation in the Deccan Plateau in India. Between 40 and 60 million years ago, 700,000 cubic kilometers of basalt lava formed in the Deccan Plateau.

A stream of basalt lava gushes out from the cracks in the earth's crust and flows to the sea like a river. When it encounters seawater, it quickly cools and turns into solid basalt, shrinks, and crystallizes. During the solidification process of the magma, it explodes, and The contraction force is very even, resulting in a regular pattern of columns, usually hexagonal prisms. This process is a bit like what happens when a thick layer of silt at the bottom of a quagmire cracks under the sun's rays. The main feature of basalt lava columns is that the cracks extend straight up and down, and water can flow from the top to the bottom. The result is a unique network of basalt columns, all uncannily joined together with only tiny cracks in between. Because the volcanic lava overflowed five or six times at different times, the cliffs formed a multi-level structure.

The "Giant's Causeway" is a perfect expression of the columnar basalt landform. These stone pillars form a stone path with stone steps, and the wide part looks like a dense stone forest. The Giant's Causeway and the Giant's Causeway Coast are not only steep natural landscapes, but also provide valuable information for earth science research.

In the tens of millions of years since its formation, the basalt pillars of Cape Jaintscosway have been eroded by glaciers during the Great Ice Age and washed by Atlantic waves, gradually shaping a unique landscape of varying heights. Each basalt pillar is actually composed of several hexagonal stones stacked together. The waves gradually eroded away the exposed parts along the fault lines between the stones. The stone pillars were cut off at different heights and the loose parts were carried away, resulting in the prototype of the Giant's Causeway showing a stepped appearance. After millions of years of erosion and weathering , and finally, the stepped effect of the basalt stone embankment is formed.

The "relatives" of the Giant's Causeway can be found all over the world: columnar basalt landforms similar to the "Giant's Causeway" are also found in other parts of the world, such as Staffa in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Island, southern Iceland, Zhuzi Mountain in Liuhe County, Jiangsu Province, China, etc., but none are as complete and spectacular as the Giant's Causeway.

For example, there is also a group of basalt pillars on the island of Staffa in the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. Basalt columns are well developed in most parts of the island, and there is a famous huge cave, Fingal's Cave, which has been described in poetry and novels for centuries. During a visit to the island in 1829, the composer Felix Mendelssohn was inspired by the beautiful scenery and composed the famous orchestral prelude now known as "The Inner Hebrides".