Snow Beauty and the pea

science-junkie:

seafarers:

Giant’s Causeway by Horia Bogdan

Name and legend fit because this expanse of stone columns, viewed from above, can easily be mistaken for a road paved by a giant. But geologists  know a thing or two about natural structure of volcanic origin and they tell us a different story. They let us know that, about 50 million years ago, a large part of Northern Ireland and the West of Scotland were subjected to prolonged volcanic activity of the crust.

Spilling from long cracks in the crust,  lava covered these areas with thicknesses of hundreds of meters. Cooling slowly and uniformly,  the lava generated regular polygons of basalt in the more superficial layers, through a process of contraction — like the mud when it dries in the sun.
The surface cracks gradually deepened, dividing the entire thickness of basaltic rock in the stone columns. Then, when the wall rock surrounding these basalt formations were eroded by the activity of the sea, the entire columns came to light.

Anyway, they take the breath away.

slobbering:

From the Slobbering Darkness

[x]

uncoverinq:

(by OuroborosX)