Columnar jointing of volcanic rocks exists in many places on Earth. Perhaps the most famous basalt lava 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.
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.
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. [38]
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.
Hexagonal basalt was used to build retaining walls by early settlers in some places around Dunedin in New Zealand.
