Columnar jointing of volcanic rocks exists in many places on Earth. Perhaps the most famous basaltlava flow in the world is the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, in which the vertical joints form polygonal columns and give the impression of having been artificially constructed.
Notable columnar jointed volcanics
Africa
Bugarama in Rusizi, Rwanda[citation needed] Columnar jointing in Rusizi district, Nzahaha Sector. This may have formed from contractional cooling of basaltic lavas.
Foreke Quarry, Foreke Dachang, Cameroon
Ikom Columnar Basalt in Cross River State, Nigeria [1]
Garni Gorge, ArmeniaCurved columns of rhyolitictuff at the Hong Kong High Island ReservoirInterlocked basaltic columns at the top of Kavadia mountain at Dewas district in India.Columnar basalts at Cape Stolbchatiy, Kuril Islands, Russia
Heiyuhe Columnar Joints (黑鱼河柱状节理) [Xianrenqiao (仙人桥)], Longchuan River (龙川江) & Black Fish River, Tengchong
Hong Kong
Basalt Island area, Hong Kong; including High Island Reservoir area, Hong Kong; although the High Island Reservoir is not basalt but rhyolitic tuff, rich in potash feldspar and quartz phenocrysts.
In India, columnars are found in several places across the volcanic traps such as 6.5 crore or 65 million years ago (Mya) old deccan traps in South India and 14.5 crore or 145 mya old Rajmahal Traps in Eastern India.
Kavadia Pahad columnars: Forest area near Bagli & Pipari village of Dewas District in Madhya Pradesh. The rock formation is at Kavadia Pahad which is a series of seven mountain ranges.[5]
Linga columnars: 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) south of Chhindwara city.
Narsinghpur columnar joints in Deccan Basalts near Narsinghpur.
Basalt columns in the Rhön, North Bavaria, GermanyVolcanic rock columns, Milos, GreecePonta da Ajuda, Azores, PortugalBasalt rocks near Detunata Goală east of Bucium, RomaniaColumnar jointing in the basalt of the Giant's Causeway in Northern IrelandFingal's Cave, Staffa Island, Scotland
Croatia
Rupnica, Papuk Nature Park UNESCO Global Geopark, Croatia
Columnar jointing in the basalt of the Pain de sucre (sugar loaf) in les Saintes, GuadeloupeLa Concepción, Aculco, MéxicoBasalt columns in the Mascota River, MexicoBasaltic Prisms of Santa María Regla in Huasca de Ocampo, HidalgoColumnar basalt at Devil's Postpile in CaliforniaDevils Tower, Wyoming
Battery Rock Rest Area, Located on the Golden Highway, 15 kilometres southeast of Merriwa and 19 kilometres northwest of Sandy Hollow on the western side of the highway.[28] NSW
Several exposures of columnar jointing have been discovered on the planet Mars by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, which is carried by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Notable among them are formations in the Marte Vallis.[37]
Uses
A view of Gunung Padang
A likely Hindu-origin ancient site at Gunung Padang in West Java, Indonesia was built by horizontally laying basalt columns to form terraces on the slope of a hill and creating open-roofed chambers by erecting vertical columns. A now-ruined thirteenth-century religious complex called Nan Madol was built using columnar basalt quarried from various locations on the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia.
Detail of columnar basalt pieces at Nan Madol
Hexagonal basalt was used to build retaining walls by early settlers in some places around Dunedin in New Zealand.
Gallery
Engraving of a basalt formation; from: Alberto Fortis, Della valle vulcanico-marina di Roncà nel territorio veronese (1778)
^"Bulingan Falls". ChoosePhilippines.com. 28 August 2013. Archived from the original on March 19, 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Kölbl-Ebert, Martina; Colicchio, Stéphanie (2014). "The Boyabat Basalt Cliffs"(PDF). l'association de la Maison de la Géologie et de l'Environnement de Haute-Alsace. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
^"Panská skála". Luzicke-hory.cz. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
^Gobierno vasco. "Basaltos de Fruiz"(PDF). Inventario lugares de interés geológico en la comunidad autónoma del País Vasco (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 February 2016.
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