Two Sides Of The Coin At Popular Unesco Site

Bushmills - 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.

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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 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (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.