{"id":639172,"date":"2026-06-15T02:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T02:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/639172\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T02:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T02:27:09","slug":"globally-significant-volcanic-event-formed-giants-causeway-scientists-find-geology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/639172\/","title":{"rendered":"Globally significant volcanic event formed Giant\u2019s Causeway, scientists find | Geology"},"content":{"rendered":"

For centuries, the tale has been passed from generation to generation: how the Irish giant Finn McCool built the Giant\u2019s Causeway in Northern Ireland<\/a> to fight Benandonner, his Scottish rival, by hurling chunks of the Antrim coastline into the sea.<\/p>\n

Now, scientists have revealed it was intense volcanic activity during a \u201cmajor globally impacting volcanic event\u201d \u2013 and not a legendary battle between two destructive giants \u2013 that led to the formation of the coastline\u2019s 40,000 distinctive interlocking basalt columns about 60m years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Geochronologists investigating how the Giant\u2019s Causeway was created have discovered it was formed over 5.5m years, 8m years less than previously estimated.<\/p>\n

They also found the processes that formed the Giant\u2019s Causeway were linked to a globally significant volcanic event recorded in rocks as far away as Greenland.<\/p>\n

The basalt columns of the Giant\u2019s Causeway make up a listed Unesco world heritage site. Photograph: by Andrea Pucci\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

For the first time, they were able to definitively connect the first lava flows on the Northern Irish plateau to the same volcanic activity that formed the giant basalt columns in Fingal\u2019s Cave on the Scottish Hebridean island of Staffa \u2013 rocks that were previously thought to have formed millions of years after the Causeway.<\/p>\n

Rock formations on the nearby Mourne mountain range and on the Hebridean isle of R\u00f9m, as well as magmatic activity on Skye, can also be linked to this volcanic activity, placing the formation of the Giant\u2019s Causeway within a more precise, global geological context for the first time and enabling scientists to create a new timeline for volcanic activity across Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

Dr Simon Tapster, a geochronologist at the British Geological Survey (BGS), said: \u201cFundamentally, what we\u2019ve done is by piecing together this tapestry of volcanic rocks all across the North Atlantic, but focusing on Northern Ireland, we have been able to reassess a major globally impacting volcanic event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn doing that, and in reassessing the timescales, we have shown that actually it occurred in a much shorter duration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Giant\u2019s Causeway is a Unesco world heritage site and has been named one of the greatest natural wonders of the UK. According to Irish folklore, Finn McCool created the causeway so he could cross to Scotland to confront Benandonner, who was threatening his homeland \u2013 but retreated back to the island of Ireland, chased by his Scottish rival, when he saw the Scot was a much larger and more impressive giant.<\/p>\n

Legend has it that it was Oonagh, Finn\u2019s quick-thinking wife, who then saved the day. She disguised Finn as a giant baby so that Benandonner, scared into believing the infant\u2019s father would be large enough to beat him in a fight, rushed back across the causeway to Scotland \u2013 destroying as much of the crossing as he could on his way.<\/p>\n

Although visitors to the dramatic landscape may prefer to believe the legend, scientists have shown the Causeway was formed when thick molten rock rose through cracks in the Earth\u2019s crust. As the lava cooled and contracted, stress and tension built up in the rock, forcing it to fracture into mostly hexagonal columns, although some of the rocks have four, five, seven or more sides.<\/p>\n

Tapster\u2019s research is part of a wider initiative at the BGS to improve the understanding of the UK\u2019s geology through better quantifying geological time in the rocks around us.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cBy looking at the timescales and the high-resolution timeline, we\u2019re able to match it up with various other locations, particularly in the Inner Hebrides in Scotland, the volcanics of Mull, Rum, the Isle of Skye, and taking a bigger view, looking at Greenland and the Faroe Islands.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For centuries, the tale has been passed from generation to generation: how the Irish giant Finn McCool built…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-639172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}