The Giant‘s Cause­way lies at the foot of the basalt cliffs along the sea coast on the edge of the Antrim plateau in North­ern Ire­land. It is made up of some 40,000 mas­sive black basalt columns stick­ing out of the sea. The dra­mat­ic sight has inspired leg­ends of giants strid­ing over the sea to Scot­land. Geo­log­i­cal stud­ies of these for­ma­tions over the last 300 years have great­ly con­tributed to the devel­op­ment of the earth sci­ences, and show that this strik­ing land­scape was caused by vol­canic activ­i­ty dur­ing the Ter­tiary, some 50–60 mil­lion years ago.