Latest news with #GeologicalSurveyofNorthernIreland
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Pocket Change Is Causing Destruction at Iconic UNESCO World Heritage Site
Northern Ireland's legendary Giant's Causeway has survived a lot over 60 million years including volcanic eruptions, crashing waves, and even myths of battling giants. However, pocket change is becoming its latest threat, and authorities are now asking visitors to stop jamming coins into the iconic rocks. If you've ever visited the Causeway, you know the awe that hits as you step onto its iconic basalt columns, rising like nature's staircase into the sea. But look a little closer, and you'll start to notice tiny metallic intrusions shoved into cracks and crevices. Dozens, hundreds, and thousands of coins, that seem to multiply everywhere you look. What began as a superstitious gesture—coins left behind for luck or love—has turned into a headache for conservationists. And now, the National Trust is asking visitors to knock it off. "People see others put coins in, so they copycat, they take a coin out of their pocket and they might take a stone off the ground to hammer the coin in, but they might miss and chip the stone itself so that's doing damage," says Dr. Cliff Henry, nature engagement officer with the Trust. This tourist behavior results in rust stains, chipped stone, and structural damage to some of the site's most fragile formations, especially an area known as The Loom, which is a cluster of 10-foot-tall leaning columns that are already feeling the wear. Once the coins are in, they don't just sit there. The salty sea air accelerates corrosion, and expanding metal puts pressure on the basalt. In some cases, pieces have already broken off. Then there's the rust. A reddish-brown wash now stains the lighter-colored rocks, thanks to metals like copper, iron, and nickel leaching out and streaking the stone. 'This is rapid erosion on a geological scale,' says Henry. 'And we're talking about a World Heritage site here.' The Giant's Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986, attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. 684,000 visitors came last year alone, as attendance steadily climbs back toward the pre-pandemic peak of nearly one million. In response to concerns over damage caused by visitors wedging coins into the rock formations, the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland is supporting a cleanup effort. According to Dr. Kirstin Lemon, the first step is the safe removal of the coins, a task already underway with the help of a professional stonemason who has extracted about 10% so far. The hope is that once the coins are gone, the damaging habit will disappear as well. 'We don't want visitors trying to pry them out themselves,' warns Henry, emphasizing the risk of causing further damage. Speaking to the BBC, he added, 'It's Northern Ireland's most iconic natural wonder. If we can't protect this, what does that say about how we care for the rest of our landscape?' For now, new signs and stronger messaging are on the way, but ultimately, the Causeway's future depends on people respecting what's already there. Pocket Change Is Causing Destruction at Iconic UNESCO World Heritage Site first appeared on Men's Journal on May 29, 2025
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Giant's Causeway visitors urged not to jam coins into iconic rocks
The Giant's Causeway has faced many threats to its survival, from mythical fights between giants to coastal erosion and rising sea levels. Now there's a new problem. At first, you don't notice them but as soon as you see one, you start to see them everywhere - hundreds of them, in every fissure and crevice. They are coins, inserted into the tiny gaps between one of Northern Ireland's most famous and photographed natural resources, the basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway. Like the padlocks left on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris, people often leave the coins behind for love or luck. But, like that tradition, the coins are causing problems, and now visitors are being asked to keep their spare change in their pockets. In Paris, it has been made illegal to attach a padlock after part of the bridge collapsed in 2014. At the Giant's Causeway, the practice started years ago – but the caretakers for the site, the National Trust, believe it has increased significantly in scale in the last decade or so. Hundreds of thousands of tourists and locals visit each year and only a fraction leave behind this unwanted memento. But the coins are having a direct impact on the rocks themselves. The worst affected are the basalt columns that make up The Loom – 10 ft high leaning towers of rock. They are a slightly lighter colour than the iconic hexagonal black basalt at the point of the causeway. It is easy to see at first glance the discolouration caused by the coins - a reddish-brown wash over the surface. Dr Cliff Henry, nature engagement officer with the National Trust, said the rocks are affected on a number of levels. "People see others put coins in, so they copycat, they take a coin out of their pocket and they might take a stone off the ground to hammer the coin in, but they might miss and chip the stone itself so that's doing damage." He added: "Once the coin is in there it starts to rust and due to the atmosphere here it rusts at an accelerated level. "The coin then expands and that's putting pressure on the joint near the edge so we have seen on a number of places here that the corners have popped off. "And the rusting metal in there is starting to leach. The iron and nickel and copper is leaching out over the rocks and it looks unsightly." He said they're appealing to people to stop inserting the coins before more damage is done to these 60-million-year-old rocks. "On a geological timescale, this is very rapid erosion." A report from the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland shed some light on the problem. Dr Kirstin Lemon said: "The advice of the Geological Survey to the National Trust is to see if we can remove as many of those coins as we can. "By removing them, it means we're stopping any further physical impact on the site itself. We're also stopping that chemical impact as well." She said she hoped that by removing coins, it would stop others adding more. A specialist stonemason has started the work and has removed about 10% of them so far. "He's done some test sites already so we know we can take these coins out without doing damage to the stones themselves," said Dr Henry. "We want him to do it - we don't want the general public to do that, we don't want to cause any further damage." Signs will also be put up and visitors are already warned not to insert the coins by tour guides at the Giant's Causeway, like Mark Adams. "I think it's a simple thing of wanting to leave something of themselves behind," he said. "But if you want to leave something behind, take a photo, put it online, it'll be there forever." Last year, the Giant's Causeway received about 684,000 visits. The numbers are steadily climbing back to their pre-pandemic levels. There were nearly a million visits in 2019. The National Trust said not only is it Northern Ireland's most valuable natural phenomenon, it is important for the economy too. "It's an icon for Northern Ireland - if we can't look after this, what's the hope for the rest of the country?," said Dr Henry. "We really need to be looking after the causeway as best we can." In Pictures: Celebrating the Giant's Causeway Cash deal for cross border tourism routes welcomed Walking in the footsteps of giants for free or a fee Giant's Causeway's 1m visitors in year
