Giant's Causeway cases the horizontal fracture has resulted in a bottom face that is convex while the upper face of the lower segment is concave, producing what are called "ball and socket" joints. The size of the columns is primarily determined by the speed at which lava from a volcanic eruption cools. The extensive fracture network produced the distinctive columns seen today. The basalts were originally part of a great volcanic plateau called the Thulean Plateau which formed during the Paleocene. According to legend, the columns are the remains of a causeway built by a giant. The story goes that the Irish
S Cassiopeiae S Cassiopeiae S Cassiopeiae (S Cas, HD 7769) is a mira variable and S-type star in the constellation Cassiopeia. In the absence of a measure of its parallax by the Hipparcos satellite, its distance from the solar system is estimated between 1,860 and 2,770 light-years. With a spectral type of S3,4e-S5,8e, S Cassiopeiae is an S-type star similar to χ Cygni; these are asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars similar to those of class M except that the dominant spectral bands of metal oxides are formed by metals of the fifth period of the periodic table as zirconium or yttrium. Another