The shape, structure and texture of a basalt is diagnostic of how and where it erupted — whether into the sea, in an explosive cinder eruption or as creeping pahoehoe lava flows, the classic image of Hawaiian basalt eruptions.

The fine-grained gray rock in this image is the host basalt.

One of the most distinctive uses of this paving technique is the image of the Saint Queen Elizabeth of Portugal, in Coimbra, designed with black and white stones of basalt and limestone.

In the Airavatesvara Temple at Darasuram, a rare image of the Chola period, in black basalt, depicts Shiva as Sharabha.

The visual and map view appearance of Black Mesa is as an " inverted valley " because erosion has removed the relatively soft sedimentary strata from either side of the resistant Raton basalt of the lava which originally had occupied and filled a river valley.

The French name originally given to the bay was Baie des Verges ( Bay of Penes ), because of the phallus-shaped basalt spires that rise on either side of its entrance.

Before 2000, arguments that the Deccan Traps flood basalts caused the extinction were usually linked to the view that the extinction was gradual, as the flood basalt events were thought to have started around 68 Ma and lasted for over 2 million years.

Additionally, the largest flood basalt event ( the Siberian Traps ) occurred around 250 Ma and was coincident with the largest mass extinction in history, the Permian – Triassic extinction event, although it is also unknown whether it was completely responsible for the extinction event.

The word " basalt " is ultimately derived from Late Latin basaltes, misspelling of L. basanites " very hard stone ," which was imported from Ancient Greek βασανίτης ( basanites ), from βάσανος ( basanos, " touchstone ") and originated in Egyptian bauhun " slate ".

It was completed in November 2000 and forms a “ black box ” of tinted concrete and black basalt stone.

The nascent dike was then strengthened with basalt rocks and mats of willow switch at its base.

Beyond the foothills is an arid plateau that was created 16 million years ago as a coalescing series of layered flood basalt flows.

To irrigate " Eagar ", even though it was not called that at the time, he had no dynamite, so the Mormons in the area had to heat basalt volcanic rocks with fires, bring cold water from the river to pour over the hot rocks to break them, then drag the smaller rocks to the river to dam the river and create the Greer Lakes.

The name was derived from an isolated basalt island in the Snake River, seven miles upstream at in the Snake River that was the nesting site for approximately twenty eagles.

White Rock Canyon was carved through basalt and tuff by the south-flowing Rio Grande.

The nascent dike was then strengthened from land by basalt rocks and mats of willow switch at its base.

Many layers of basalt successively flowed over one another, back when the area was still flat.

In 1912 the unincorporated town was then known as Fallbridge, named in recognition of the southern extension of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, which crossed the Columbia on the Oregon Trunk Rail Bridge constructed on the basalt rock of Celilo Falls.

It was possible to construct a bridge that had piers resting on normally exposed basalt rock above the water fall during low water periods such that during periods of high water, when this stretch of the Columbia River became raging rapids, the piers supported a bridge spanning the entire flood.

Neptunists differed from the plutonists in holding that basalt was a sedimentary deposit which included fossils and so could not be of volcanic origin.

Hutton correctly asserted that basalt never contained fossils and was always insoluble, hard, and crystalline.

A period of volcanic activity followed, and much of the area was covered with floods of basalt lava, which smoothed the topography into a high plateau.

Puu Moiwi, a remnant cinder cone, is the location of the second-largest basalt quarry in Hawaii, and this was mined for use in stone tools such as koi ( adzes ).

Some 50 to 60 million years ago, during the Paleogene period, Antrim was subject to intense volcanic activity, when highly fluid molten basalt intruded through chalk beds to form an extensive lava plateau.

It was in these inventive jasper " and " basalt " ware compositions that the manufacturers of the age, who had conceived and perfected the style, earned their great reputation.

Its foundation was made of black basalt, a great part of which is still preserved.

The island was purchased for ₤ 15 by the Crown in 1854, a very early date in New Zealand's colonisation by Europeans, and for many years served as a source of basalt for the local construction industry.

All ancient doors were hung by pivots at the top and bottom of the hanging stile which worked in sockets in the lintel and sill, the latter being always in some hard stone such as basalt or granite.

The basalt blocks show " clear evidence " of having been cut with some kind of saw with an estimated cutting blade 15 ft in length capable of cutting at a rate of a minute.

In another example, believing the black rock of the Schlossberg at Stolpen to be the same as Pliny the Elder's basalt, Agricola applied this name to it, and thus originated a petrological term which has been permanently incorporated in the vocabulary of science.

The vast majority of the Earth's surface is underlain by gabbro within the oceanic crust, produced by basalt magmatism at mid-ocean ridges.

The oldest is Yiron in the northern portion of the Israeli Rift, with flint artifacts in a fluviatile deposit below a basalt layer dated at 2. 4 million years old, the oldest stone tools found anywhere outside Africa.

By definition, basalt must be an aphanitic igneous rock with less than 20 % quartz and less than 10 % feldspathoid by volume, and where at least 65 % of the feldspar is in the form of plagioclase.

The term basalt is at times applied to shallow intrusive rocks with a composition typical of basalt, but rocks of this composition with a phaneritic ( coarse ) groundmass are generally referred to as diabase ( also called dolerite ) or gabbro.

Columnar basalt at Szent György Hill, Hungary

Vesicular basalt at Sunset Crater, Arizona.

Agricola applied " basalt " to the volcanic black rock of the Schlossberg ( local castle hill ) at Stolpen, believing it to be the same as Pliny the Elder's " very hard stone ".

Columnar basalt at Giant's Causeway

It is deposited at a relatively low temperature and may occur in the fissures of almost any kind of rock, being most commonly found with limonite, sandstone, rhyolite, marl and basalt.

Another object found in the excavations at Side, a basalt column base from the 7th century BC and attributable to the Neo-Hittites, provides further evidence of the site's early history.

It is built of basalt which extends in length 18 km in the direction of the Rhône, and at its widest is a maximum 11 km in width.

The Keia district contains at least two ancient burial caves, Kauvava and Piri Te Umeume, which were accessed by diagonal descents through boulder-strewn roof collapses from the top of the makatea, the limestone cliffs that form a concentric ring around the central basalt core of the island ( Anton and Steadman 2003: 133, 136 ).

Causes include meteorite strikes ( Cretaceous – Paleogene extinction event ; Upper Devonian ); flood basalt provinces ( Deccan Traps at Cretaceous – Paleogene boundary ; Siberian Traps at P – T ; and other less dramatic processes.

The basalt topped sandstone hill at Scrabo is one of the dominant features of north Down.

Elsewhere, basalt outcrops can be found along the coast and at other sites.

It descends to a rock pool at the base of the falls, offering fine views of the basalt rock face.