   fingal's cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of staffa, in the inner hebrides of scotland, part of a national nature reserve owned by the national trust for scotland.national trust for scotland: fingal's cave it became known as fingal's cave after the eponymous hero of an epic poem by 18th-century scots poet-historian james macpherson. ==formation== it is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns within a paleocene lava flow, bell, b.r. and jolley, d.w. (1997) "application of palynological data to the chronology of the palaeogene lava fields of the british province: implications for magmatic stratigraphy". journal of the geological society. london. vol. 154, pp. 701â708. similar in structure to the giant's causeway in northern ireland and those of nearby ulva. in all these cases, cooling on the upper and lower surfaces of the solidified lava resulted in contraction and fracturing, starting in a blocky tetragonal pattern and transitioning to a regular hexagonal fracture pattern with fractures perpendicular to the cooling surfaces.atilla aydin and james m. degraff (1988) "evolution of polygonal fracture patterns in lava flows," science 29 january 1988: 239 (4839), 471-476.  as cooling continued these cracks gradually extended toward the centre of the flow, forming the long hexagonal columns we see in the wave-eroded cross-section today. similar hexagonal fracture patterns are found in desiccation cracks in mud where contraction is due to loss of water instead of cooling.lucas goehring, l. mahadevan, and stephen w. morris (2009) "nonequilibrium scale selection mechanism for columnar jointing". pnas 2009 106 (2) 387-392  ==acoustics== its size and naturally arched roof,staffa (fingal's cave) and the treshnish islands the internet guide to scotland and the eerie sounds produced by the echoes of waves, give it the atmosphere of a natural cathedral. the cave's gaelic name, an uaimh bhinn, means &qu
Caves_of_Scotland Columnar_basalts Geography_of_Argyll_and_Bute Inner_Hebrides Paleogene_volcanism Protected_areas_of_Argyll_and_Bute Sea_caves Volcanoes_of_Scotland