Latest news with #basalt
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Tourist coins pose giant problem at N. Ireland's famous causeway site
Northern Ireland's Giant Causeway draws close to one million visitors a year but their habit of wedging tiny coins in cracks between the rocks -- to bring love or luck -- is damaging the world-famous wonder. Now authorities are urging tourists to keep their coins in their pockets to preserve the spectacular landscape. Some 40,000 columns mark the causeway, Northern Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Geologists say the natural phenomenon was created by an outpouring of basalt lava 60 million years ago. Legend has it that the causeway was formed by Irish giant Finn McCool. In recent decades, visitors have pushed thousands of coins into fissures in the rocks. The gesture is "a token of love or luck", according to Cliff Henry, the causeway's nature engagement officer. But the coins rapidly corrode and expand, causing the basalt to flake and leaving "unsightly" rust-coloured streaks, Henry told AFP. He pointed to streaks on a rock and gingerly prised out a US cent with a set of keys. "We get a lot of euros and dollar cents. But coins from literally all over the world -- any currency you can think of, pretty much -- we have had it here," he said. A report by the British Geological Survey in 2021 revealed that the coins were "doing some serious damage" and something had to be done about it, he noted. Signs are now in place around the site appealing to tourists to "leave no trace". - 'Distressed' - "Once some visitors see other people have done it, they feel that they need to add to it," causeway tour guide Joan Kennedy told AFP. She and her colleagues now gently but firmly tell tourists to desist. At the exit from the causeway, a US couple said they were "distressed" to hear of the damage the metal caused. "Our guide mentioned as we came up that people had been putting coins into the stones. It's really terrible to hear that," said Robert Lewis, a 75-year-old from Florida. "It's kind of like damaging any kind of nature when you are doing something like that, putting something foreign into nature. It's not good," said his wife, Geri, 70. As part of a £30,000 ($40,000) conservation project, stone masons recently removed as many coins as they could -- without causing further damage -- from 10 test sites around the causeway. Henry said the trial was successful and is to be expanded across the causeway. "If we can get all those coins removed to start with that will help the situation and hopefully no more coins will be put in," he said. "If visitors see fewer coins in the stones and hear appeals to stop the damaging practice, the problem can maybe be solved. "We know that visitors love and cherish the Giant's Causeway,and many form deep personal connections to it, so we want this natural wonder to remain special for future generations." pmu/jj/gil
News.com.au
a day ago
- News.com.au
Tourist coins pose giant problem at N. Ireland's famous causeway site
Northern Ireland's Giant Causeway draws close to one million visitors a year but their habit of wedging tiny coins in cracks between the rocks -- to bring love or luck -- is damaging the world-famous wonder. Now authorities are urging tourists to keep their coins in their pockets to preserve the spectacular landscape. Some 40,000 columns mark the causeway, Northern Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Geologists say the natural phenomenon was created by an outpouring of basalt lava 60 million years ago. Legend has it that the causeway was formed by Irish giant Finn McCool. In recent decades, visitors have pushed thousands of coins into fissures in the rocks. The gesture is "a token of love or luck", according to Cliff Henry, the causeway's nature engagement officer. But the coins rapidly corrode and expand, causing the basalt to flake and leaving "unsightly" rust-coloured streaks, Henry told AFP. He pointed to streaks on a rock and gingerly prised out a US cent with a set of keys. "We get a lot of euros and dollar cents. But coins from literally all over the world -- any currency you can think of, pretty much -- we have had it here," he said. A report by the British Geological Survey in 2021 revealed that the coins were "doing some serious damage" and something had to be done about it, he noted. Signs are now in place around the site appealing to tourists to "leave no trace". - 'Distressed' - "Once some visitors see other people have done it, they feel that they need to add to it," causeway tour guide Joan Kennedy told AFP. She and her colleagues now gently but firmly tell tourists to desist. At the exit from the causeway, a US couple said they were "distressed" to hear of the damage the metal caused. "Our guide mentioned as we came up that people had been putting coins into the stones. It's really terrible to hear that," said Robert Lewis, a 75-year-old from Florida. "It's kind of like damaging any kind of nature when you are doing something like that, putting something foreign into nature. It's not good," said his wife, Geri, 70. As part of a £30,000 ($40,000) conservation project, stone masons recently removed as many coins as they could -- without causing further damage -- from 10 test sites around the causeway. Henry said the trial was successful and is to be expanded across the causeway. "If we can get all those coins removed to start with that will help the situation and hopefully no more coins will be put in," he said. "If visitors see fewer coins in the stones and hear appeals to stop the damaging practice, the problem can maybe be solved. "We know that visitors love and cherish the Giant's Causeway,and many form deep personal connections to it, so we want this natural wonder to remain special for future generations." pmu/jj/gil
Khaleej Times
a day ago
- Khaleej Times
Tourist coins pose giant problem at N. Ireland's famous causeway site
Northern Ireland's Giant Causeway draws close to one million visitors a year but their habit of wedging tiny coins in cracks between the rocks -- to bring love or luck -- is damaging the world-famous wonder. Now authorities are urging tourists to keep their coins in their pockets to preserve the spectacular landscape. Some 40,000 columns mark the causeway, Northern Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Geologists say the natural phenomenon was created by an outpouring of basalt lava 60 million years ago. Legend has it that the causeway was formed by Irish giant Finn McCool. In recent decades, visitors have pushed thousands of coins into fissures in the rocks. The gesture is "a token of love or luck", according to Cliff Henry, the causeway's nature engagement officer. But the coins rapidly corrode and expand, causing the basalt to flake and leaving "unsightly" rust-coloured streaks, Henry told AFP. He pointed to streaks on a rock and gingerly prised out a US cent with a set of keys. "We get a lot of euros and dollar cents. But coins from literally all over the world -- any currency you can think of, pretty much -- we have had it here," he said. A report by the British Geological Survey in 2021 revealed that the coins were "doing some serious damage" and something had to be done about it, he noted. Signs are now in place around the site appealing to tourists to "leave no trace". - 'Distressed' - "Once some visitors see other people have done it, they feel that they need to add to it," causeway tour guide Joan Kennedy told AFP. She and her colleagues now gently but firmly tell tourists to desist. At the exit from the causeway, a US couple said they were "distressed" to hear of the damage the metal caused. "Our guide mentioned as we came up that people had been putting coins into the stones. It's really terrible to hear that," said Robert Lewis, a 75-year-old from Florida. "It's kind of like damaging any kind of nature when you are doing something like that, putting something foreign into nature. It's not good," said his wife, Geri, 70. As part of a £30,000 ($40,000) conservation project, stone masons recently removed as many coins as they could -- without causing further damage -- from 10 test sites around the causeway. Henry said the trial was successful and is to be expanded across the causeway. "If we can get all those coins removed to start with that will help the situation and hopefully no more coins will be put in," he said. "If visitors see fewer coins in the stones and hear appeals to stop the damaging practice, the problem can maybe be solved.
ABC News
18-05-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Rockstar Rocks: Fertilising farms with basalt
Scientists are investigating if spreading finely crushed basalt on farmland can reduce the need for fertilizers and capture carbon.
ABC News
17-05-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Crushed basalt used in roads could cut expensive fertiliser bills, trap carbon dioxide
A growing number of scientists in Australia and overseas are investigating whether finely crushed basalt could reduce the need for expensive fertilisers. If successful, it could help farmers cut costs while removing carbon from the atmosphere. Basalt, a commonly found rock in Australia, forms from rapidly cooled lava and is rich in minerals such as magnesium and calcium. Many Australians know it as "blue metal", the gravel often used in road bases, driveways, concrete mixes and landscaping. Researchers believe it could help farmers in two ways: as it erodes, it releases minerals found in fertilisers, and as it breaks down, it removes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air permanently. Queensland farmer Michael Russo is trialling crushed rock on some of his cane and macadamia paddocks at Childers, 300 kilometres north of Brisbane. "It just looks like crusher dust, and people use it on roads and in their backyards to put pavers down and things like that. It's so readily available and you think, 'Is it too good to be true?'" Mr Russo said. A Brisbane start-up, Carbonaught, has been applying basalt to sections of Mr Russo's farm for three years. After the first year, Mr Russo was so impressed with improvements in the soil he started his own trial on a 9 hectare macadamia block. "[It should] generate some great returns for soil nutrients and soil health, plus the ability of carbon capture." Mr Russo is excited about the prospect of being paid one day for removing atmospheric carbon or getting higher prices for low-carbon cane and macadamias. "We've had some great success already talking to some of the Japanese buyers really wanting to understand this further and take some sugar we've had some basalt down on," he said. The process is called enhanced rock weathering. Queensland soil scientist Paul Nelson has been running a range of trials, including applying varying rates of basalt to sugar cane plots in Cairns, for five years. "What we're doing with enhanced rock weathering is speeding up the process. "It has a liming effect which neutralises acidity in the soil, and it also releases nutrients, so potentially you can get a benefit, not just carbon dioxide capture, but also increased soil health and plant growth." Australia's soils are naturally highly weathered and often infertile, but Mr Nelson said adding crushed basalt could effectively rejuvenate them, giving them the characteristics of younger, healthier soils. He said he and other researchers around the world were working to develop globally accepted systems to monitor, report and verify how much CO2 basalt could remove from the atmosphere. The work is being done in conjunction with several organisations, including two carbon removal start-ups: Carbonaught (Australia) and UNDO Carbon (UK). He said his five-year, world-first trial on sugar cane recently paid off when they were able to quantify the amount of CO2 captured in the soil. "Nobody had done it before. It's pretty tricky, and it took us a few years to work it out," he said. Luckily for Australia's farmers, there's no shortage of basalt. "We've modelled 15 million hectares [of farmland] within 50 kilometres of an actively mined viable rock source," Carbonaught co-founder Andrew Pedley said. He and a mining colleague started their company four years ago when they saw the scale of the basalt waste problem at open-cut mines. Often it sits on top of valuable mineral deposits, called overburden, and is removed and left. "Those stockpiles can be ten metres high, 100 metres wide and a kilometre long," Mr Pedley said. "The permanent lock-up [of CO2] and the ability to basically move it a couple of hundred yards down the road onto farmland was a really compelling case." After basalt is crushed to different sizes for commercial use, the demand for the dust and finest gravel left over is low. Mr Russo buys the hard-to-sell fine basalt gravel from a Boral quarry at nearby Hervey Bay. At between $10 and $30 a tonne, it's cheap. "We'd certainly appreciate having an extra offtake opportunity that makes a lot of environmental and sustainable sense," Boral national technical manager Simon Murcott said. "Phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, all these minerals our farmers are paying for, that are being dug up in countries overseas and shipped all the way over to Australia … are sitting in rock dumps just down the road." Mr Pedley said soil tests showed the basalt on Mr Russo's farm was weathering or breaking down. Mr Russo hoped the trials would cut his annual fertiliser bill by a third. With key fertiliser-producing nations facing unrest and global trade uncertainty, he said interest in weathering basalt was growing. "It's a really good time to have a solid, stable fertiliser and carbon play for both food production but also market access," Mr Pedley said. Watch ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm AEST on Sunday or on ABC iview.
