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21st Oct 2015

Scientists have worked out why the Giant’s Causeway looks so damn cool

Incredible

Carl Kinsella

Is there anything that science can’t do?

The Giant’s Causeway in Co. Antrim is one of Ireland’s most spectacular sights. Its hexagonal columns of black basalt are perhaps the island’s most distinctive landscape.

Legend has it that the causeway was built by a giant, but science says differently.

Researchers in Germany have claimed that “as lava cools, however, the initially rectangular columns gradually transform into more hexagonal shapes, with the T-junctions of the fledgling fracture patterns evolving into Y-junctions over time. This is also seen in laboratory experiments with solidifying starch, which undergoes a similar transition in fracture patterns.”

Giants Causeway

Look at all those Y-junctions!

This is way more exciting than that boring story about an Irish giant who built the causeway so he could battle a giant in Scotland. Thanks a lot, science.

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Topics:

Antrim,Ireland