Large Rocks and Grass
More stunning views from the Causeway Walk on the way to the main attraction. We did not explore enough to discover the sand reported to exist along the water margin.
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Spheroidal weathering of Basalt
Layers of red rock, lit here by sunset on Giant’s Causeway, along the cliff trail, seen here from below, are called laterite from the Latin for brick (later). Here it is formed from iron rich basalt laid down well before the upper layers of the magma plateau. It takes eons to weather and oxidize the iron of basalt, transforming it to the brick red of laterite, yet the rocks above it are still dark. The process happens in warmer climates with alternating cycles of rain and drought, for Ireland this was when the land was much farther south than today. Giant’s Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
Here it is formed from iron rich basalt laid down well before the upper layers of the magma plateau. It takes eons to weather and oxidize the iron of basalt, transforming it to the brick red of laterite, yet the rocks above it are still dark. The process happens in warmer climates with alternating cycles of rain and drought, for Ireland this was when the land was much farther south than today.
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Lava dikes rise from the water below. Here is a wider view with the “causeway” elements with human figures in foreground.
2,400 miles distant
Next stop Iceland, about 705 miles over the water, in this view north from Giant’s Causeway walk.
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Can you see the footpath? The human figures? They provide a sense of scale. I love that patch to yellowed grass.
Spheroidal weathering of Basalt
In preparation for our Ireland tour I woke before work to research each location, filling a leather bound notebook with facts and observations. Faced with the Giant’s Causeway I was woefully unprepared to comprehend the sights.
Walking down the Causeway path, the cliffs rise on the right, at the foot are these strange deposits. The Causeway is part of an enormous lava plateau formed during eruptions 50-60 million years ago. This lava was at bottom, eventually exposed to weather. As eons passed, the basalt reacted chemically with rainwater, the outer rock flaking off like layers of an onion to reveal these strange rounded forms.
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Being here is like finding the abandoned workshop of a giant. The place lives up to the name.
A Bactrian Camel (?)
The entire northern Antrim coast is the remnant of an lava flow hundreds of feet deep, the depth corresponds to cliff height today. It made a great location for a defensive fort, or dun, featured in an earlier post. I say today because on a time scale of 50 million years the late Bronze age, 3000 years ago, was yesterday.
Here is another view from the Giant’s Causeway walk, wonders presented at every step. This lava dike, now surrounded by water, formed when flowing lava entered a crack though a layer of basalt from an earlier eruption. The lava cooled, over eons the surrounding material eroded, leaving a wall of rock. This formation has an irregular surface that resembles a two humped camel from some angles.
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2,400 miles distant
Next stop Labrador, Canada, North America in this view from the Giant’s Causeway Walk.
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The attraction has miles of footpaths, every inch with stunning views such as this.
Enormous and Personal Scale
Volcanism formed much Ireland landscape and can be credited with a huge tourist attraction near Bushmills, Northern Ireland, UK (Click me for another post of volcanic Irish landscape). The opening of the mid-Atlantic rift and movement of continents dwarfs the origin story of a roadway built by giants to connect Ireland to Scotland.
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On a prosaic scale, the granite curbs stones proved my undoing. On the walk out of the Causeway, in the falling light of dusk composing a shot, eye to the viewfinder, I fell off the curb. The camera fell, breaking the mount on both the flash and camera. To this day, I need to hold the flash in wireless mode when using the Sony.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 